GIFT  OF 

SEELEY  W.  MUDD 

and 

GEORGE  I.  COCHRAN    MEYER  ELSASSER 

DR.JOHNR.  HAYNES    WILLIAM  L.  HONNOLD 

JAMES  R.  MARTIN         MRS.  JOSEPH  F.  SARTORI 

to  the 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

SOUTHERN  BRANCH 


JOHN  FISKE 


I 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


mi 


sm 


Form  L-9-15m-8,'26 


JAMES    MARTINEAU 


JAMES   MARTINEAU 


A   BIOGRAPHT  AND   STUDT 


BY 

A.  W.  JACKSON,  A.M. 


t 


BOSTON 
LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND   COMPANY 

1901 


87930 


Copyright,  igoo. 
By  Little,  Brown,  and  Company 


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UNIVERSITY    PRESS     •      JOHN    WILSON 
AND     SON      •      CAMBRIDGE,     U.S.A. 


3 


TO  HORATIO   STEBBINS. 


Dear  Friend,  -whose  noble  presence  fails  to  show 

The  regal  gratideur  of  thy  inner  plan,  — 

Patrician  mien,  but  an  imperial  man,  — 

/  link  thy  name  with  that  of  Martineau. 

He  sage ;  thou  prophet.     His  the  orient  glow 

Of  one  who  stands  on  peak  of  Darien; 

Thine,  to  call  back  dead  souls  to  life  again, 

Isaiah's  fla?ne,  the  tones  of  Cicero. 

He  is  the  Phosphor  of  the  coming  day ; 

Awakener  thou  of  those  who  dwell  in  night. 

Through  hi?n  men  see  the  heights,  through  thee  adore; 

And  they  who  write  your  epitaphs  should  say 

Of  him,  "  He  totiched  the  mountain  crests  with  light;  " 

Of  thee,  " He  thrilling  witness  to  its  glory  bore''' 


PREFACE 


Though  the  plan  of  this  volume  may  be  manifest  in  its 
pages,  it  may  yet  be  not  amiss  to  state  it.  Of  course  I 
could  have  prepared  the  narrative  of  Dr.  Martineau's 
life  and  followed  it  with  an  analysis  of  his  teaching, 
intent  upon  nothing  more  than  a  just  account  of  his 
labors ;  and  this  is  what  I  contemplated  when  I  set  about 
the  task.  As  I  meditated,  however,  the  thought  occurred 
to  me  that  I  might  make  the  volume  not  only  an  account 
of  Dr.  Martineau,  but  also  an  utterance  of  my  own  mind ; 
and  these  two  aims  have  ruled  my  labor.  In  saying  this, 
I  hope  I  do  not  need  to  say  that,  save  in  love  and  rever- 
ence, the  disciple  does  not  place  himself  beside  his  master. 
I  only  imply  that  the  disciple  is  other  than  his  master,  and 
interprets  him  from  his  own  mind  and  heart. 

This  twofold  aim  may  explain  to  some  a  frequent 
feature  of  the  page,  a  mingling  with  exposition  of  much 
that  is  extra-expository.  There  is  another  feature,  too,  of 
which  it  is  the  explanation.  In  dealing  with  the  problems 
of  thought,  it  made  necessary  the  treatment  of  them  at 
first  hand.  This  necessity  brought  me  to  the  study  of  Dr. 
Martineau  in  his  teachers,  —  the  masters  of  Tubingen,  the 
great  moralists,  the  great  philosophers,  who  appear  some- 
what conspicuously  in  the  perspective  of  these  pages. 


Vlll  PREFACE 

Conceiving  my  task  thus,  I  was  happily,  in  the  general 
bias  of  my  mind,  fairly  well  prepared  to  execute  it  without 
controversy  with  my  master.  Indeed  I  am  not  sure  that 
my  thought  has  not  been  too  accordant  with  his  for  the 
best  result  of  a  critical  study  of  him.  His  admonition  to 
me,  "  Be  sure  that  you  do  not  spare  me,"  has  sometimes 
come  back  to  me  almost  as  a  reproof  for  not  finding  more 
in  him  to  dissent  from.  However,  the  Empirical  type  of 
philosophy,  never  more  than  a  tentative  in  my  mind,  long 
ago  ceased  to  be  even  that;  and  Utilitarian  ethics  had 
always  seemed  to  me  at  best  to  provide  only  rules  of  con- 
duct, never  standards  of  character.  Thus  on  the  one  hand. 
On  the  other,  the  latter-day  Idealism,  though  taught  me 
by  a  teacher  whom  I  must  always  revere,  and  met  in  books 
altogether  admirable,  had  never  laid  a  spell  upon  me. 
Accordingly,  I  was  prepared  to  receive  as  they  came 
the  Types  of  Ethical  Theory  and  the  Study  of  Religion; 
and,  coming  at  length  to  the  discussion  of  their  problems, 
I  found  their  cardinal  teachings  my  own  working  convic- 
tions. In  the  domain  of  Christian  Theology,  too,  Dr. 
Martineau  had  long  been  a  leader  whom  I  was  well  content 
to  follow,  while  his  peculiar  ecclesiasticism  was  an  ideal  of 
my  mind  before  I  met  it  in  his  pages.  When  I  came  to 
the  Scat  of  Authority  in  Religion,  the  cardinal  features 
of  his  New  Testament  criticism  were  too  familiar  to  be 
disturbing;  and,  though  I  had  long  wished  for  ample 
assurance  that  John  wrote  the  Fourth  Gospel,  my  studies 
had  made  me  more  and  more  doubtful  if  he  could  have 
done  so.  On  the  Messianic  question,  however,  I  was 
thrown  for  a  time  into  an  attitude  of  dissent:  Dr.  Marti- 
ncau's  contention  that  Jesus  did  not  claim  to  be  the  Messiah 


PREFACE  ix 

for  a  time  seemed  incredible,  and  I  girded  myself  for 
something  like  a  debate  with  him.  Collating,  however, 
the  Synoptic  texts  which  bear  upon  this  problem,  I  soon 
found  that  my  own  affirmative  position  was  not  without 
difficulties;  and  at  length,  meditating  the  great  declara- 
tion at  Caesarea  Philippi,  the  general  truthfulness  of  Dr. 
Martineau's  theory  was  irresistibly  borne  in  upon  me. 
Thus  I  have  toiled  on,  as  serenely  satisfied  with  Dr.  Mar- 
tineau  as  was  John  Fiske  with  Herbert  Spencer  when  he 
wrote  the  eloquent  volumes  of  his  Cosmic  Philosophy. 

A  work  like  this,  dealing  with  a  teacher  of  so  vast  a 
range,  must  necessarily  be  selective  in  its  character :  it  can 
deal  with  but  few  of  the  themes  that  invite  consideration. 
In  the  present  volume  even  of  the  themes  selected  and 
studiously  treated,  by  no  means  all  are  ofifered.  Among 
other  discarded  manuscripts  my  mind  turns  regretfully 
to  a  lengthy  and  toilsome  discussion  of  the  Types  of 
Ethical  Theory.  My  publishers,  undoubtedly  wiser  than 
I,  conceived  that  it  were  better  to  compress  the  two 
volumes  I  had  prepared  into  one,  and  so  this  was  left 
out  because  it  could  be  spared. 

My  thanks  are  due  to  Longmans,  Green  &  Co.,  of 
London,  for  their  kind  permission  to  quote  according  to 
my  need  from  the  Seat  of  Authority  and  the  Essays, 
Revieivs,  a?id  Addresses,  of  which  they  are  the  publish- 
ers. The  like  grateful  acknowledgment  is  also  due  the 
Clarendon  Press  of  Oxford  for  their  permission  to  use 
in  like  manner  the  Study  of  Religioft  and  the  Types  of 
Ethical  Theory.  I  gratefully  remember,  too,  a  group  of 
ministers  in  Boston  in  the  smile  of  whose  sympathy  and 
most  cordial  helpfulness  my  task  has   been   performed; 


X  PREFACE 

also  the  children  of  Dr.  Martineau  for  the  valuable  assist- 
ance they  have  given  me.  There  are  others  who  have 
variously  aided  me ;  they  will  doubt  not  that  I  remember 
their  kindness,  though  I  do  not  name  them. 

The  labor  that  here  closes  has  been  the  happiness  of 
many  hours  and  the  comfort  of  some  pain ;  and  I  send  it 
forth  in  the  hope  that  it  may  draw  some  to  the  further 
contemplation  of  the  great  intellect  and  soul  to  which  it 

is  devoted. 

A.   W.  JACKSON. 

Concord,  Mass.,  Feb.  20,  1900. 


CONTENTS 


Book  I 

THE    MAN 
Chapter  Page 

I.  Ancestry,  Family,  Early  Home i 

II.  Education 12 

III.  Ministry  in  Dublin 35 

IV.  Ministry  in  Liverpool 50 

V.     Ministry  in  Liverpool  {continued') 72 

VI.     London 88 

VII.     Later  Publications  ;  A  Remarkable  Testimonial  107 

VIII.     His  Intellect 123 

IX.     Personal  Features 135 

a3ook  Vk 
THE    RELIGIOUS    TEACHER 

I.     The  Preacher 142 

II.    The  Christian  Theologian 162 

III.     The  New  Testament  Critic 221 

53aok  CH 
THE   PHILOSOPHER   OF   RELIGION 

I.     Knowledge 279 

II.  God  and  Cosmos 299 

III.  God  and  Conscience 358 

IV.  His  Criticism  of  Pantheism 401 

V.     Freedom  and  Immortality 423 

INDEX 449 


JAMES    MARTINEAU 


BOOK    I 

THE    MAN 
CHAPTER   I 

ANCESTRY,   FAMILY,   EARLY   HOME 

Louis  XIV.  conferred  incalculable  benefit  upon  other 
nations  by  acting  the  tyrant  within  his  own.  The  Edict 
of  Nantes,  their  Magna  Charta  of  religious  privilege,  had 
given  the  Protestants  within  his  realm  a  legal  if  precarious 
exercise  of  their  worship.  The  Revocation  of  this  Edict 
in  1685  made  Protestantism  an  outlaw.  The  horrible 
detail  of  persecution  that  followed,  the  demolition  of 
churches,  the  separation  of  children  from  their  parents, 
the  galleys,  the  Dragonade,  need  not  be  recounted  here. 
The  inevitable  result  was  a  flow  of  emigration  which  the 
severest  penalties  and  a  ubiquitous  police  could  not  check. 
The  refugees  went,  availing  themselves  of  every  favorable 
circumstance,  in  every  manner  of  disguise,  the  arrest  of 
some  only  leading  others  to  plot  more  skilfully ;  and  with 
them  went  the  bravest  manhood,  the  sturdiest  intelligence, 
the  most  profitable  industry.  They  recruited  the  armies 
with  which  France  was  soon  to  be  struggling,  and  carried 
French  manufactures  into  countries  wherewith  France 
was  competing.  More  than  this,  they  carried  the  latent 
intelligence  that  was  destined  to  unfold  in  children  and 

I 


2  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

in  children's  children,  that  should  have  added  to  the 
triumphs  of  French  art  and  letters  and  statesmanship 
and  philosophy. 

Among  these  refugees  was  one  in  whom  we  have  a 
special  interest,  a  certain  Gaston  Martineau,  son  of  Elie 
Martineau  of  Bergerac.  There  is  also  a  tradition  that 
makes  him  a  surgeon  of  Dieppe.  Bergerac,  as  we  know 
from  general  history,  was  one  of  the  places  visited  by  the 
Dragonade,  and  the  Martineaus  may  therefore  have  wit- 
nessed, perhaps  experienced,  its  atrocities.  After  the 
Revocation  of  the  Edict,  this  Gaston,  a  young  man  and  a 
surgeon,  came  into  England.  On  the  ship  that  bore  him 
across  the  Channel  was  a  family  of  Pierres,  also  refugees ; 
and  one  of  these,  Marie  Pierre,  became  afterwards  his  wife. 
They  settled  first  in  London,  afterwards  in  Norwich, 
where  were  already  a  considerable  number  of  Huguenot 
exiles,  and  here  he  practised  his  skill  and  reared  his 
family.  Eight  children  were  born  to  him.  What  was 
his  age  when  he  came  into  England,  or  the  date  of 
his  coming,  it  is  impossible  to  say ;  but  the  records  of 
the  Walloon  Church  in  Norwich,  in  which  he  and  his 
immediate  descendants  worshipped,  show  him  to  have 
been  the  father  of  two  children  in  1695.  This  is  all  that 
can  now  be  told  of  one  the  full  record  of  whose  life  we 
should  be  so  glad  to  know.^ 

Of  the  children  of  Gaston  Martineau,  the  third  was 
named  David.  He  adopted  the  medical  profession,  and 
blessed  Norwich  by  walking  in  his  father's  footsteps.  To 
him  was  born  a  son,  also  named  David,  who  became  a 
surgeon  likewise.  Though  he  died  at  the  early  age  of 
thirty-seven,  he  left  seven  children.  The  oldest  of  these, 
Philip  Meadows  Martineau,  fulfilled  the  family  expectation 
of  a  surgeon,  and   in  the  practice   of  that  noble  science 

1  Since  writing  the  above  I  have  learned  that  he  was  married  at  Spital- 
fields  in  1693,  ^"^  ^^'^t  ^^'^  fii'st  child  was  baptized  there  in  1694. 


ANCESTRY,   FAMILY,   EARLY   HOME  3 

advanced  the  family  fame.  The  youngest  of  the  seven, 
Thomas,  born  after  his  father's  death,  became  the  father 
of  him  whose  life  and  work  now  engage  our  studious  in- 
terest. Of  Thomas  Martineau  little  need  be  said.  He 
settled  in  his  ancestral  Norwich,  and  engaged  in  the  manu- 
facture of  bombazine,  a  species  of  cloth  much  in  use  in 
those  days,  of  which  Norwich  was  the  chief  source  of  sup- 
ply. From  a  notice  of  him  published  several  years  ago, 
the  impression  has  gone  widely  abroad  that  he  was  also  a 
wine-merchant.  This  is  an  error.  His  customers  in  other 
countries  would  sometimes  send  him  wine  in  recognition 
of  some  business  favor  or  from  friendly  regard.  His  wine 
was  consequently  often  of  choicer  flavor  than  that  of  his 
neighbors  and  friends,  who  would  therefore  sometimes 
ask  him  to  secure  a  pipe  for  them.  This  he  would  do, 
though  not  as  business,  but  as  accommodation. 

Thomas  Martineau  married  Elizabeth  Rankin,  of  New- 
castle-upon-Tyne, a  woman  of  hardy  Northumbrian  stock, 
vigorous,  affectionate,  and  capable.  She  bore  him  eight 
children.  Of  these  the  sixth  was  Harriet,  born  in  1802, 
with  whom  the  world  has  become  well  acquainted  through 
her  large  intelligence,  broad  sympathies,  and  heroic  work; 
the  seventh  was  James,  born  April  21,  1805,  the  lion  of 
this  tribe  of  Judah.  The  other  six  sustained,  perhaps  not 
less  worthily,  their  less  conspicuous  part.  Of  these  Eliza- 
beth, the  first  born,  and  Ellen,  the  last,  married  each  a 
surgeon,  and  so  imported  into  the  fifth  generation  a  native 
product  of  the  preceding  four.  Rachel  never  married,  and 
for  many  years  conducted  a  boarding-school  in  Liverpool. 
There  were  three  brothers,  Thomas,  Henry,  Robert.  The 
latter  was  a  prominent  manufacturer  in  Birmingham,  and 
at  one  time  mayor  of  the  city.  His  eldest  son  afterwards 
twice  held  the  same  office,  and  in  1887  was  knighted  by 
the  queen.  Ellen  left  also  a  son,  who  is  now  a  noncon- 
formist minister. 


4  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

Of  this  large  group  James  was  for  many  years  the  sole 
survivor.  It  was  his  fortune  to  enjoy  far  more  than  the 
customary  period  of  earthly  life,  and  to  be  vigorously  em- 
ployed at  an  age  when  most  must  rest.  It  was  not  till 
January  ii,  1900,  then  a  little  less  than  ninety-five,  that 
he  put  off  mortality. 

Of  the  early  home  life  details  are  scanty,  though  such  as 
we  have  afford  a  tolerable  picture.  The  father  was  a  man 
of  fine  taste  and  kindly  spirit,  and,  as  we  shall  see  further 
on,  of  unbending  integrity.  He  was,  however,  immersed 
in  business,  and  his  part  in  the  home  could  be  hardly  more 
than  a  wholesome  and  cheerful  influence.  The  manage- 
ment of  the  family,  therefore,  fell  mainly  on  the  mother. 
A  mother  with  eight  children  may  be  as  a  sun  in  the 
domestic  firmament,  that  shines  on  all  alike ;  but  though 
they  may  severally  have  all  her  love,  they  must  of  necessity 
divide  her  care,  and  so  early  learn  the  useful  lessons  of  self- 
dependence  and  mutual  helpfulness.  It  was  thus  in  this 
household.  A  portrait  of  her,  taken  in  old  age,  shows  a 
strong  and  self-reliant  character ;  and  her  gifted  son  speaks 
of  her  sympathies  as  "  open  and  flexible  to  new  admirations, 
to  new  thoughts,  to  new  virtues."  He  also  tells  us  that 
"  Burns  was  the  poet  of  her  heart,"  and  that  "  she  would 
repeat  his  lines  with  a  mellow  and  racy  simplicity,  whose 
tones  ring  in  my  memory  to  this  hour."  ^  She  was,  too,  a 
woman  of  large  executive  ability,  also  of  unbending  con- 
scientiousness, braced  and  softened  by  religious  sensibility. 

As  respects  the  general  flow  of  family  intimacy  and 
affection,  it  is  fair  to  remember  that  this  family  were  of  the 
early  part  of  the  present  century,  when  ideas  and  standards 
were  very  different  from  now.  Dr.  Martineau  himself  says: 
"  In  old  nonconformist  families  especially,  the  Puritan  tra- 
dition and  the  reticence  of  a  persecuted  race  had  left  their 
austere  impress  on  speech  and  demeanour  unused  to  be 

1  1884. 


ANCESTRY,   FAMILY,   EARLY   HOME  5 

free ;  so  that  in  domestic  and  social  life  there  was  enforced, 
as  a  condition  of  decorum,  a  retinue  of  language  and  de- 
portment strongly  contrasting  with  our  modern  effusive- 
ness." He  adds :  "  In  the  process  of  change  to  more 
genial  ways,  that  Norwich  home  was  in  advance  of  the 
average  movement  rather  than  behind ;  and  in  few  others 
have  I  found  the  medium  better  observed  between  .  .  . 
bidding  high  for  profession  of  enthusiasm  and  quenching 
its  reality  by  coldness  and  derision."  From  this  we  get  a 
clear  impression  of  a  gentle  hand  that  guided  firmly,  a 
love  less  marked  by  profuseness  of  endearment  than  by 
constancy  of  parental  service.^ 

The  religious  discipline  of  the  home  was  probably  graver 
than  is  the  wont  in  like  households  now.  The  traditions 
of  Puritan  ancestry  had  not  then  had  time  to  relax  their 
hold,  as  they  since  have  done,  and  we  can  imagine  the 
compulsory  Bible-readings,  the  severely  decorous  Sabbaths. 
Yet,  that  the  severity  of  that  home  was  less  than  might  be 
looked  for  at  that  date,  the  following  anecdote  may  show. 
The  mother,  going  to  church  one  evening,  left  the  children 
at  home  alone  with  direction  to  read  the  Bible  in  her  ab- 
sence. On  her  return  she  asked  James  what  he  had  read. 
His  answer  was  "  Isaiah."  "  Why,  no,  you  cannot  have 
read  the  whole  of  Isaiah."  "  Yes,  mother,  I  have,  skip- 
ping the  nonsense."  Many  of  us  whose  birth  was  of 
later  date  took  our  Bible  as  it  came,  not  daring  to  skip  the 
nonsense  or  even  find  it.  Further,  in  the  bias  of  religious 
opinion,  the  family  had  departed  widely  from  the  Calvin- 
istic  standard  of  their  Huguenot  ancestry;  indeed,  they 
represented  the  liberalism  of  the  day.    Their  church  stood 

^  See  two  very  interesting  letters  by  Dr.  Martineau  in  the  London  Daily 
News,  December  30,  1S84,  and  January  8,  1885.  These  letters  were  drawn 
out  by  some  reflections  on  his  mother  by  Mrs.  Fenwick  Miller  in  her  biog- 
raphy of  Harriet  Martineau.  These  reflections,  as  well  as  certain  intima- 
tions in  Miss  Martineau's  Atitobiooraphy,  should  for  all  time  be  discredited 
by  his  most  finely  tempered  word. 


6  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

for  English  Presbyterianism,  the  root  whence  English  Uni- 
tarianism  sprang.  A  cardinal  principle  with  English  Pres- 
byterians was  the  requirement  of  no  creed,  adopting  for 
their  rule  the  maxim  of  Chillingworth,  "  To  the  Bible  and 
the  Bible  only  the  Christian  shall  subscribe." 

In  the  earlier  years  the  father  prospered  in  business; 
and  though  the  family  maintained  no  extravagant  stand- 
ard, their  circumstances  were  very  comfortable.  There 
came,  however,  an  evil  day  of  which,  for  the  sturdy  honor 
and  self-sacrifice  it  called  forth,  it  is  pleasant  to  tell.  In 
1823  France  threw  her  armies  upon  Spain,  which  received 
them  almost  without  resistance.  New  commercial  arrange- 
ments were  dictated  to  the  advantage  of  France,  but  to  the 
grievous  loss  of  England.  Thomas  Martineau's  bomba- 
zines had  long  gone  to  Spain  in  exchange  for  Spanish  silks. 
This  trade  was  now  cut  off,  and,  despite  his  bravest  efforts, 
his  business  rapidly  declined.  At  length  his  affairs  reached 
such  a  degree  of  embarrassment  that  he  could  honor- 
ably keep  silence  no  longer,  and  he  laid  them  before  his 
creditors.  They  found  his  liabilities  in  the  neighborhood 
of  ;^ioo,ooo,  his  assets  not  far  from  ^75,000.  Fifteen  shil- 
lings to  the  pound  could  have  been  paid,  and  thus  release 
secured.  Fifteen  shillings,  however,  could  not  pay  a  pound, 
according  to  Martineau  standards ;  nor  could  war  or  any 
other  disaster  release  from  an  obligation  that  any  toil  or 
sacrifice  could  cancel.  Confident  of  his  ability  in  time  to 
pay  all,  his  creditors  suffered  him  to  undertake  the  struggle. 
It  was  a  long  struggle,  lasting  beyond  his  life,  and  carried 
on  by  his  family.  At  length  the  goal  was  won ;  the  debt, 
a  maelstrom  that  had  sucked  in  all  their  family  fortune, 
was  discharged,  and  the  family  could  face  the  world  with 
poverty  and  honor.  Rachel  and  Ellen  must  needs  take 
service  as  governesses,  and  Harriet  incur  the  hardships 
of  her  brave  early  career,  but  no  indulgence  was  purchased 
with  an  unpaid  debt. 


ANCESTRY,   FAMILY,   EARLY   HOME  J 

That  this  achievement  left  a  legacy  of  pleasant  memory 
we  may  well  believe ;  and  testimony  is  not  wanting.  In 
the  memoirs  of  Lord  Brougham  is  a  note  which  he  once 
addressed  to  Lord  Grey,  soliciting  a  pension  for  Harriet 
Martineau,  whom  he  felt  to  be  overworked  and  much  de- 
serving. In  it  he  referred,  innocently  enough,  to  her 
father's  failure,  meaning,  of  course,  the  catastrophe  that 
swept  away  his  fortune.  On  the  appearance  of  the  book 
Harriet  wrote  to  the  London  Daily  News  with  the  intensity 
with  which  she  might  have  repelled  an  insult :  "  My  father 
did  notfaiiy  Dr.  Martineau  also,  in  a  later  writing,  speaks 
of  the  "  imputation  "  (of  having  failed  in  business)  erro- 
neously cast  upon  his  father  "  in  Lord  Brougham's  auto- 
biography." Some  years  later  still,  speaking  of  this  event 
with  the  present  writer,  he  said  with  a  satisfaction  his  mod- 
esty could  not  conceal :  "  There  was  no  failure ;  twenty 
shillings  to  the  pound  were  paid."  If  there  had  been  fail- 
ure, surely,  according  to  the  judgment  of  men,  there  had 
been  no  dishonor.  The  war  was  none  of  Thomas  Marti- 
neau's,  and  he  was  powerless  to  avert  its  consequences ; 
and  not  a  few  may  find  at  the  root  of  his  conduct  an  exag- 
gerated sense  of  honor.  Here,  however,  is  the  austere 
ethics  of  such  emergencies,  as  his  son  in  later  years  pro- 
claimed them  :  "  Whatever  be  the  practice  of  society  with 
respect  to  the  insolvent,  surely  it  is  a  mean  perversion  of 
the  natural  moral  sense  to  imagine  that  his  temporary  in- 
ability, or  length  of  delay,  can  cancel  one  iota  of  his  obliga- 
tion :  these  things  only  serve  to  increase  its  stringency ; 
tardy  reparation  being  a  poor  substitute  for  punctual 
fidelity.  I  am  far  from  denying  that  circumstances  of 
special  and  blameless  misfortune  may  justify  him  in 
accepting  the  voluntary  mercy  of  friends  willing  to  '  for- 
give him  all  that  debt.'  But  whoever  avails  himself  of 
mere  legal  release  as  a  moral  exemption,  is  a  candidate  for 
infamy  in   the  eyes    of  all    uncorrupted    men.     The    law 


8  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

necessarily  interposes  to  put  a  period  to  the  controversy 
between  debtor  and  creditor,  and  prohibit  the  further 
struggle  between  the  arts  of  the  one  and  the  cruelty  of  the 
other :  but  it  cannot  annul  their  moral  relation.  Obliga- 
tion cannot,  any  more  than  God,  grow  old  and  die :  till  it 
is  obeyed,  it  stops  in  the  present  tense,  and  represents  the 
eternal  now.  Time  can  wear  no  duty  out.  Neglect  may 
smother  it  out  of  sight:  opportunity  may  pass  and  turn 
it  from  our  guardian  angel  into  our  haunting  fiend :  but 
while  it  yet  remains  possible,  it  clings  to  our  identity,  and 
refuses  to  let  us  go."  ^ 

Beyond  the  home,  the  surroundings,  if  not  the  best  con- 
ceivable, were  by  no  means  unfavorable.  Norwich  was, 
indeed,  no  Athens  of  poets  and  philosophers ;  and  neither 
was  she  a  Nazareth  from  which  no  good  thing  was  to  be 
expected.  Though  a  manufacturing  city,  it  had  in  the 
early  part  of  the  century  an  intellectual  life  which  was 
considerable,  and  with  it  the  Martineaus  were  in  touch. 
William  Taylor  lived  there,  and  was  then  doing  his  work, 
which,  if  not  great,  as  viewed  in  relation  with  the  ages, 
was  yet  not  without  value  to  his  time.  To  the  periodicals 
of  the  day,  he  was  a  toilsome  contributor  on  subjects  of 
foreign  literature.  He  was  among  the  first  to  introduce 
German  poetry  to  English  readers.  He  translated  the 
Nathan  der  Weise,  and  gave  a  rendering  of  the  ballad  of 
Ellenore  which  found  favor  in  the  eyes  of  Longfellow,  and 
from  which  Sir  Walter  Scott  derived  some  inspiration.^ 
He  also  wrote  an  Historic  Survey  of  German  Poetry,  and  a 
work  on  English  synonyms.  His  style  was  quaint,  in- 
volved, harsh,  —  no  mortal  could  read  him  now;  but  the 
fact  stands  that  he  was  read,  and  not  without  profit,  then. 
There  was  also  a  Dr.  Frank  Sayers  who  abandoned  medi- 

1  Sermon :  Christian  Doctrine  of  Merit,  Endeavors  after  the  Christian  Life. 

2  Mrs.  Barbauld  wrote  him  :  "  Do  you  know  that  you  made  Walter  Scott 
a  poet  ?  He  told  me  the  other  day.  It  was,  he  says,  your  ballad  of  Lenore 
that  inspired  him."     Three  Generations  of  Ettglisk  Women,  Janet  Ross. 


ANCESTRY,   FAMILY,   EARLY   HOxME  9 

cine  for  literature.  He  wrote  Dramatic  Sketches  of  Ancient 
Northern  Mythology;  he  brouglit  out  a  volume  of  poems ; 
he  was  the  author  of  a  volume  of  Disquisitions,  Metaphysi- 
cal ajid  Literary.  None  of  these  works  reached  the  standard 
that  insures  fame,  yet  they  served  their  day.  There  was  like- 
wise a  Dr.  Rigby  who  wrote  very  elaborately  on  subjects  of 
medicine  and  agriculture  ;  also  a  Dr.  Alderson,  who  wrote 
on  agriculture  and  geology ;  and  several  others  whose  names 
are  recorded,  and  whose  works  the  curious  may  still  find,  — 
not  stars,  yet  very  serviceable  candles.  There  were  two 
others  who  stood  in  a  somewhat  dififerent  category :  Amelia 
Opie,  whose  novels,  though  not  great,  were  yet  wholesome, 
and  gained  a  popularity  that  lasted  beyond  her  day ;  and 
Anna  Laetitia  Barbauld,  intelligent,  gentle,  pure,  who  fell  a 
little  short  of  popularity  and  just  missed  of  fame.  The 
latter  did  not  live  in  Norwich,  but  was  a  frequenter  there, 
and  an  occasional  visitor  in  the  Martineau  household. 
Indeed,  the  Norwich  of  Mr.  Martineau's  boyhood  might 
have  filled  an  alcove  of  a  public  library  with  the  works  of 
her  contemporary  authors. 

Besides,  the  city  was  not  without  a  record  of  strong  men 
in  whose  paths  the  growing  boy  must  tread.  There  was 
John  Taylor,^  teacher,  author,  and  Presbyterian  divine, 
who  wrote  many  works  of  a  theological  character,  —  A 
Hebrew  Concordance,  A  Scheme  of  Scripture  Divijiity,  The 
Scripture  Doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  A  Paraphrase  and 
Notes  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  A  Free  ajid  Candid  Ex^ 
amination  of  the  Scripture  Doctrine  of  Original  Sin.  The 
latter  was  honored  with  a  polemic  cannonade  both  from 
Edwards  and  John  Wesley.  Reaching  somewhat  farther 
back,    there   were    Archbishop    Parker,    Thomas    Legge, 

1  Born  at  Lancaster,  1694.  Ordained  by  "  dissenting  ministers  "  at  Derby- 
shire in  1716.  He  moved  to  Norwich  to  become  the  colleague  of  another 
minister  in  1733.  In  1754  he  laid  the  first  stone  of  the  famous  Octagon 
Chapel,  described  by  John  Wesley  as  "  perhaps  the  most  elegant  one  in  all 
Europe,"  and  too  fine  for  the  "  old  coarse  gospel." 


10  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

Bishop  Cosin,  Bishop  Pearson,  —  all  Norwich  born;  also 
Erpingham,  Bishop  Hall,  and,  best  known  of  all,  Sir 
Thomas  Browne,  had  found  here  their  home.  It  was 
surely  no  empty  panegyric  on  the  part  of  Lord  Houghton, 
when  he  said  in  an  address  at  Norwich,  not  many  years 
ago :  "  I  know  no  provincial  city  adorned  with  so  many 
illustrious  names  in  literature,  the  professions,  and  public 
life ;  those  of  Taylor,  Martineau,  Austin,  Alderson,  Opie, 
come  first  to  my  recollection,  and  there  are  many  more 
behind ;  and  there  is  this  additional  peculiarity  of  distinc- 
tion, that  these  are  for  the  most  part  not  the  designation 
of  individuals,  but  of  families  numbering  each  men  and 
women  conspicuous  in  various  walks  of  life."  ^ 

In  this  period,  too,  flourished  a  somewhat  famous  school 
of  landscape  painting,  distinguished  by  the  works  of  Crome 
and  Cotman  and  Vincent,  —  far  enough  from  Gainsborough 
and  Turner,  yet  awaking  some  admiration  and  enkindling 
some  incentives  in  their  day. 

Norwich  is  a  venerable  town,  with  its  heirlooms  of  tradi- 
tion and  its  historic  monuments,  —  a  more  marked  feature 
in  the  first  quarter  of  our  century,  perhaps,  than  now.  In 
the  first  quarter  of  the  eleventh  century  it  was  the  home  of 
Canute ;  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  twelfth  century  Henry  I. 
gave  it  a  charter.  Here  are  traces  of  the  ancient  wall, 
which  in  the  first  half  of  the  fourteenth  century  sur- 
rounded whatever  of  city  there  then  was,  a  circuit  of  four 
miles.  Here  is  a  Cathedral,  a  Norman  structure,  some- 
what more  than  four  hundred  feet  in  length,  with  a  spire 
of  three  hundred  and  fifteen  feet.  Here,  too,  is  a  Benedic- 
tine monastery,  completed  before  the  middle  of  the  twelfth 
century.  Here  are  numerous  churches  said  to  antedate 
the  discoveries  of  Columbus ;  and  here  is  the  Walloon 
Church  in  which  Mr.  Martineau's  ancestors  worshipped. 

Mrs.    Chapman,    in    her  Memorials   of  Harriet  Marti- 

^   Three  Generations  of  English  IVomen,  Janet  Ross. 


ANCESTRY,   FAMILY,   EARLY   HOME  U 

neau,  writing  of  Norwich,  speaks  of  its  "uninteresting 
antiquity."  The  antiquity  may  have  been  uninteresting  to 
Harriet,  very  Hkely  to  Mrs.  Chapman.  To  James,  how- 
ever, who  was  of  another  order  of  mind,  it  may  have  been 
not  only  interesting  but  profitable.  Now  it  were  pleasant 
to  tell  how  as  a  youth  he  explored  crypt  or  churchyard, 
or  was  lost  in  reverie  as  he  gazed  on  some  venerable 
pile;  of  his  thus  doing,  however,  there  has  come  to  us 
no  tale.  But  from  our  knowledge  of  the  man  we  may 
come  at  least  to  some  divination  of  the  boy ;  and  from  this 
we  may  be  sure  of  a  sensibility  to  which  these  traditions 
and  these  associations  had  meaning.  Silently,  and  perhaps 
unconsciously,  he  must  have  received  their  influence. 

James  and  Harriet  were  children  of  the  same  mother; 
yet  the  contrasts  of  their  ruling  characteristics  were  very 
marked,  and  here  we  meet  one  of  them.  Harriet  was  a 
child  of  to-day,  who  bravely  looked  to  the  future  for 
whose  weal  she  toiled.  She  had,  however,  little  reverence 
for  the  past ;  she  was  wanting  in  the  sensibility  by  which 
she  should  have  seen  that  through  the  toils  and  strug- 
gles of  other  generations  had  been  handed  to  her  the 
very  torch  she  bore.  The  institutions,  the  ideas,  the 
faiths  of  other  times  she  was  apt  to  treat  as  the  dry  stalks 
and  decayed  herbage  of  her  spring  time  garden,  which 
she  cleared  away  to  give  space  for  the  fresh  summer 
blossoms.  James,  too,  is  a  child  of  to-day,  yet  a  Janus 
that  looks  before  him  and  behind,  —  to  the  future  with 
prophetic  hope,  to  the  past  with  eye  clear  to  the  deep 
meaning  of  its  endeavors.  His  is  the  historic  sense  that 
finds  in  to-day  the  unfolding  of  yesterday,  and  in  yesterday 
the  interpretation  of  to-day.  In  his  garden  he  is  not  so 
much  mindful  of  the  dry  stalks  and  decaying  herbage  as  of 
the  hardy  root  from  which  they  sprang,  and  from  which 
each  season  comes  another  and,  by  some  miracle,  a 
different  flower. 


CHAPTER   II 

EDUCATION 

Among  the  useful  institutions  of  Norwich  is  a  grammar 
school,  a  foundation  of  the  fourteenth  century.  To  this 
school  James  Martineau  was  sent  from  eight  to  fourteen 
years  of  age  as  a  day-scholar.  The  school  was  not  without 
reputation.  It  had  had  among  its  pupils  not  a  few  who  had 
won  distinction ;  Dr.  Samuel  Parr  was  at  one  time  at  its 
head.  When  James  was  in  attendance,  Edward  Valpy  was 
head-master.  As  a  classical  scholar  Valpy  had  reputation, 
nor  is  he  yet  forgotten.  Before  James  entered  the  school, 
he  had  published  Elegantics  Latince,  a  text-book  for  such 
as  would  teach  an  elegant  Latinity,  which  he  used.  Some- 
what later  he  brought  out  editions  of  the  Greek  Testament, 
the  Septuagint,  and  the  Iliad.  Under  a  teacher  of  such 
marked  classical  accomplishment,  the  emphasis  of  the 
school  was  naturally  upon  classical  studies,  and  in  these 
James  made  rapid  progress.  He  also  learned  the  French 
language.  Mathematics,  however,  then  as  ever  after  a 
favorite  study,  he  was  not  permitted  to  pursue  to  an 
extent  commensurate  with  his  abilities  and  his  desires. 

In  a  public  school  of  two  hundred  and  thirty  pupils  rude 
elements  are  to  be  looked  for;  and  the  sensitive  boy  who 
has  endured  well,  should  have  a  tolerable  martyrdom  put 
down  to  his  credit.  James  was  this  kind  of  boy.  He  had 
also  a  moral  sensibility  to  which  the  hazing  and  hectoring 
were  moral  affronts  of  serious  proportion.  Of  course, 
therefore,  he  was  not  entirely  happy  there. 


EDUCATION  13 

The  way  opened  for  his  transfer  to  another  school.  His 
sister  Harriet,  who  had  been  visiting  in  Bristol,  brought 
home  glowing  accounts  of  Lant  Carpenter,  who  was  both 
minister  and  teacher  there.  She  does  not  speak  of  him 
reverently  in  her  Autobiography  ;  but  her  representation  of 
him  then  led  her  parents  to  place  James  under  his  care. 
His  school  was  a  boarding-school ;  therefore  it  was  not 
large.     It  was  intended  to  be,  and  doubtless  was,  select. 

No  proper  account  can  be  given  of  Dr.  Martineau  that 
does  not  embrace  an  account  of  Lant  Carpenter.  Dr. 
Martineau  has  never  been  stingy  in  his  recognitions  of  the 
friends  of  his  intellect  or  spirit;  but  to  no  other  of  his 
helpers  has  he  confessed  a  debt  so  large  as  to  him.  Har- 
riet Martineau  speaks  of  him  as  "  superficial  in  his  knowl- 
edge, scanty  in  ability,  narrow  in  his  conceptions."  His 
influence  upon  her  brother,  of  which,  after  seventy  years, 
he  kindled  into  eloquence  when  telling,  makes  her  judg- 
ment incredible.  Writing  of  him  in  1841  he  said,  and 
never  after  saw  reason  to  unsay :  "  So  forcibly,  indeed,  did 
that  period  act  upon  me,  — so  visibly  did  it  determine  the 
subsequent  direction  of  my  mind  and  lot,  that  it  always 
stands  before  me  as  the  commencement  of  my  present  life, 
making  me  feel  like  a  man  without  a  childhood ;  and 
though  a  multitude  of  earlier  scenes  are  still  in  view,  they 
seem  to  be  spread  around  a  different  being,  and  to  belong, 
like  the  incidents  of  a  dream,  to  some  foreign  self  that 
became  extinct  when  the  morning  light  of  reality  broke 
upon  the  sight."  If  further  testimony  be  needed,  it  may 
be  drawn  from  the  action  of  the  University  at  Glasgow  in 
which  he  studied.  When  yet  but  twenty-six  years  of  age, 
forecasting  authorship,  he  conceived  that  the  degree  of 
Master  of  Arts  might  be  helpful  to  him ;  and  wrote  to 
his  Alma  Mater  respecting  it.  The  Faculty  without  dis- 
senting voice  sent  him,  not  an  M.A.,  but  an  LL.  D.  in- 
stead.    Was  it  thus  that  the  Glasgow  University  treated 


14  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

young  men  of  "  superficial  knowledge  and  scanty  ability  and 
narrow  conceptions  "  ?  Again,  the  class  of  minds  on  which 
he  acted,  together  with  his  ever-extending  and  lasting  in- 
fluence, makes  the  acceptance  of  this  estimate  impossible. 
There  are  those,  indeed,  who  mistake  twinkle  for  star;  but 
the  wise  navigators  of  hfe's  ocean  speedily  detect  the  dif- 
ference. Yet  again,  here  are  his  writings,  not  wise  with 
the  wisdom  the  last  fifty  years  have  gathered,  but  surely 
reflecting  the  scholar's  mind,  the  thinker's  insight,  and, 
before  all  else,  the  Christian  heart.  Grant  that  he  had  less 
than  the  large  and  solid  erudition  of  Arnold,  less  ability, 
also,  to  mould  the  opinions  of  his  pupils  after  the  fashion 
of  his  own,  —  a  thing  he  would  have  religiously  shrunk 
from  doing,  —  we  yet  feel  that  we  are  here  dealing  with 
one  of  those  instances  in  which  Miss  Martineau's  early 
impressions  were  truer  than  her  later  retrospects.^    Finally, 

1  There  is  a  view  of  Harriet  Martineau,  entertained  in  very  high  quarters, 
which,  in  consideration  of  some  of  the  judgments  contained  in  her  Autobi- 
ography, seems  in  its  nature  charitable.  She  was  an  invalid  a  large  portion 
of  her  life ;  she  suffered  from  extreme  deafness,  which  is  almost  sure  at  last 
to  leave  its  trace  upon  mind  or  spirit.  Besides,  she  experienced  a  spiritual 
transition  from  a  faith  the  most  confiding,  to  a  scepticism  the  most  ultra. 
The  view  is  that  she  threw  back,  as  it  were,  her  later  and  poorer  moods,  and 
so  saw  her  past  in  the  discoloring  light  of  her  present. 

An  illustrative  instance  is  told  at  Oxford  by  a  gentleman  in  very  high 
standing.  In  earlier  life,  as  is  well  known,  Miss  Martineau  wrote  a  book  of 
a  devotional  character.  In  later  life,  after  she  had  become,  as  she  supposed, 
an  atheist,  she  was  visited  one  morning  by  a  lady  whom  she  took  into  her 
garden,  then  profusely  in  blossom.  Waving  her  hand  over  her  flowers,  she 
said,  "  Who  would  n't  be  grateful  for  blessings  such  as  these  ?  "  "  Grateful 
to  whom.  Miss  Martineau,  on  your  theory  .'"'  "  Ah,"  said  she,  with  a  smile, 
"  you  have  me  there."  "  Do  you  know,"  said  the  friend,  "  it  has  always  been 
a  matter  of  great  surprise  to  me  that  one  who  wrote  those  beautiful  prayers 
should  have  become  an  atheist  ? "  "  What  prayers  }  "  "  Why,  those  you 
wrote."  "  /  never  wrote  any  prayers."  "  Why,  certainly  you  did,  Miss 
Martineau,  and  I  have  the  book  and  prize  it  very  highly."  Miss  Martineau 
still  persisted  that  there  must  be  some  mistake  about  it ;  so  the  friend  called 
again  the  next  morning  and  placed  the  volume  in  her  hands.  "  Well,"  said 
Miss  Martineau,  "  I  suppose  I  must  have  written  it,  but  I  had  forgotten  all 
about  it ;  and  I  do  not  see  how  I  could  have  done  it." 

Forgetting  the  authorship  of  a  book  seems  an  extraordinary  lapse   of 


EDUCATION  1 5 

while  it  is  true  that  a  Marcus  may  be  the  father  of  a 
Commodus,  and  that  to  a  John  Shakespeare  a  William 
Shakespeare  may  be  born,  still  in  these  days  a  permanence 
of  high  characteristics  in  a  family  is  a  suggestive  circum- 
stance. It  seems  in  point  to  remember  that  Lant  Carpenter 
was  the  father  of  Mary  Carpenter,  also  of  William  B.  Car- 
penter, whose  fame  two  continents  have  proved  not  large 
enough  to  hold ;  that  the  latter  became  the  father  of  Prof 
J.  Estlin  Carpenter,  who  promises  to  add  to  the  lustre  of 
his  line. 

In  his  mental  outfit  he  was  not  a  specialist,  nor  yet  a 
congeries  of  specialisms,  as  that  of  the  modern  scholar  is 
apt  to  be.  He  knew  the  classics  well,  mathematics  well, 
the  sciences  well,  mental  and  moral  philosophy  well.  He 
was  also,  by  education  and  training,  a  theologian.  His 
knowledge,  however,  was  an  organism  in  which  all  parts 
had  vital  relation.  He  had  therefore  the  primary  qualifi- 
cation for  imparting  knowledge,  —  a  balanced  appreciation 
not  likely  to  depreciate  in  one  direction  or  exaggerate  in 
another.  Indeed,  so  far  as  he  went,  he  answered  to  Dr. 
Martineau's  own  idea  of  an  educator,  as  given  in  his  address 
on  retiring  from  Manchester  New  College.  Gently  criti- 
cising the  tendency  to  specialisms  by  which  the  student  is 
handed  along  from  master  to  master,  he  likens  a  mind  so 
formed  to  a  ship  put  together  in  "  water-tight  compart- 
ments "  which  is  "  not  really  at  home  in  the  element  it 
traverses,  but  treats  it  as  an  enemy  against  whose  surprises 
it  must  guard."  On  the  other  hand,  he  maintains  that  a 
"  learner  of  many  subjects  from  one  mind  sees  them  in 
their  analogies  and  unity ;  for  they  cannot  well  lie  apart 
from  one  another,  unaided  by  agreement,  unconscious  of 

memory  ;  and  it  is  difficult  to  help  feeling  that  the  inability  to  see  how  she, 
the  atheist,  could  have  done  it,  in  part  explains  the  phenomenon.  The  inci- 
dent compels  us  to  feel  that,  however  zealously  she  may  have  been  pressing 
on  to  the  things  that  were  before,  it  is  necessary  to  receive  with  caution  her 
testimony  as  to  the  things  that  were  behind. 


1 6  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

contradiction,  but  must  necessarily  share  the  unity  of  the 
personality  they  occupy."  Of  course  this  presupposes  the 
one  mind,  not  large  necessarily  with  the  largeness  of 
Bacon's,  but  possessed  of  a  certain  assimilating  and  organ- 
izing power,  Baconian  in  character.  Such  a  mind  was 
Lant  Carpenter's, 

He  was,  however,  something  more  than  a  well-rounded 
scholar;  he  was  a  well-rounded  man.  He  was  deficient, 
his  pupil  tells  us,  in  aesthetic  sensibihty ;  of  art  he  had  no 
due  appreciation.  His  moral  sense,  however,  was  of  the 
noblest  order:  if  he  could  not  adequately  appreciate 
Phidias'  statues,  he  could  enter  into  Aristides'  justice ; 
and  if  clouds  and  sunsets  did  not  appeal  to  him,  he  knew 
the  look  of  Duty,  and  was  responsive  to  her  frown  or  smile. 
Not  that  he  was  an  austere  man  ;  on  the  contrary,  he  was 
a  very  gentle  one.  For  religion  too  dwelt  within  him,  and 
softened  into  a  Christian  the  stoic  he  might  otherwise 
have  been.  His  one  conspicuous  departure  from  moral  fair- 
ness was  probably  in  dealing  with  himself;  he  wore  him- 
self out  in  the  pursuit  of  an  exaggerated  duty.  Then,  the 
smile  he  could  so  freely  give  he  could  not  appropriate. 
He  would  turn  from  his  toils,  when  perforce  he  must,  not 
with  self-approval  for  the  much  he  had  done,  but  depressed 
by  a  torturing  consciousness  of  what  he  had  failed  to  do. 
Such  a  toiler  we  would  have  see  in  the  skies  he  looks  into 
a  considerateness  equal  at  least  to  his  own,  and  in  his 
nightly  musing  take  account  of  the  diligence  with  which 
he  has  climbed  as  well  as  of  the  height  he  has  not  gained. 

There  was,  too,  a  largeness  in  his  view  the  want  of  which 
has  brought  disaster  to  many  a  man  of  like  austere  con- 
scientiousness. Detail  and  minutiae  he  required ;  but  he 
saw  through  them,  and  made  others  see,  the  principle  that 
ennobled  them.  The  order  of  his  school-room  was  heaven's 
order  brought  down  to  earthly  relations ;  and  the  triviali- 
ties of  behavior,  or  what  we  call  such,  were  as  snow-flakes 


EDUCATION  17 

or  grains  of  dust  in  which  the  whole  law  of  gravitation  is 
manifest. 

As  a  theologian  he  was  involved  in  much  controversy; 
yet  his  zeal  for  the  faith  never  supplanted  his  religious 
tolerance ;  a  Protestant  of  Protestants,  he  could  yet  toil 
for  Catholic  emancipation;  a  nonconformist  of  the  Uni- 
tarian type,  he  lifted  religion  out  of  all  relation  with  sec- 
tarianism. His  convictions  were  reasonably  intense ;  yet 
so  far  did  he  put  by  religious  partisanship  that  parents  of 
the  severer  schools  of  religious  opinion  would  place  their 
children  under  his  tuition,  that  they  might  receive  the 
benefit  of  his  religious  instruction. 

He  was  greatly  helped  in  his  work  by  a  charm  that 
young  people  found  in  him.  He  could  enter  into  their 
sympathies  and  take  hold  of  their  affections.  No  mere 
charmer,  however,  will  leave  the  enduring  impression  that 
he  left ;  his  work  was  guided  by  an  aim  which  only  a  great 
teacher  and  a  holy  man  could  realize.  All  are  familiar 
with  the  criticism  of  Montaigne  upon  the  education  prev- 
alent in  his  day,  —  that  it  made  men  learned,  not  good  and 
wise,  taught  how  to  decline  virtus,  not  to  love  virtue  ;  and 
the  criticism  would  most  likely  apply  to  education  in  its 
general  scope  in  any  time.  With  Mr.  Carpenter  the  aim 
was  the  reverse  of  this  :  his  pupils  should  meet  the  commu- 
nication of  truth  with  answering  reverence  ;  he  grasped  the 
idea  of  a  symmetry  of  culture  in  which  intellect,  the  con- 
science, and  the  heart  should  be  nurtured  together.  To 
this  end  he  brought  to  bear  upon  them  his  stern  and  lofty 
ideals,  his  intense  and  burning  enthusiasm.  The  econo- 
mies of  time,  the  punctilios  of  behavior,  were  taken  out  of 
drudgery  by  being  lifted  into  moral  relations.  As  for  re- 
ligion, it  was  as  the  sunshine  and  atmosphere,  an  element 
in  which  they  lived,  —  a  stimulus,  a  consecration,  and  a 
joy.  "There  was  something  in  his  voice,"  writes  his 
pupil,  "  mellowed    by   the    spirit   within,   that    made   the 

2 


1 8  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

reality  of  God  felt ;  something  that  broke  through  the 
boundary  between  the  seen  and  the  unseen,  and  opened 
the  secret  place  of  the  Almighty,  whence  sanctity  descends 
on  all  human  obligations." 

Such  was  the  teacher  to  whom  young  James  was  com- 
mitted. That  the  progress  in  his  studies  was  rapid  hardly 
need  be  told.  The  value  of  tuition  from  such  a  teacher, 
however,  must  be  estimated,  not  in  terms  of  measurable 
attainment,  but  of  immeasurable  impulse.  If  in  Dr.  Car- 
penter was  the  genius  to  give,  in  his  pupil  was  the  genius 
to  receive ;  and  under  that  stimulus  his  whole  nature  was 
aroused.  It  was  as  dew  and  sunshine  upon  rich  and  fal- 
low soil  in  which  are  germs  of  multifarious  use  and  beauty. 
In  his  long  life  of  toil  there  was  probably  no  period  in 
which  he  would  not  have  confessed  the  still-abiding  in- 
fluence of  his  Bristol  school-master. 

Two  years  only  of  this  high  privilege  were  allowed  him, 
and  with  their  termination  he  supposed  his  school-days  to 
be  ended. 

His  father  had  decided  on  his  career ;  another  was  to  be 
added  to  the  many  attempts,  some  of  them  mournfully  suc- 
cessful, to  make  Apollo  a  farm-hand  for  Admetos.  He 
was  to  be  an  engineer,  and  was  sent  to  Derby  to  learn  his 
profession.  He  was  employed  there  in  the  works  of  Mr. 
Fox,  and  for  a  year  was  kept  at  the  lathe  or  the  bench  of 
the  model-room.  He  had  a  positive  liking  for  the  work, 
and  ever  after  preserved  a  taste  for  mechanical  construction. 

Several  circumstances  were  soon  conspiring  against  this 
mistaken  enterprise.  First,  his  master,  in  many  ways  a 
capable  man,  was  yet  not  able  to  give  him  that  instruction 
in  mechanics  which  an  accomplished  engineer  should  have  ; 
and  he  found  himself  an  apprentice  learning  a  trade  rather 
than  a  pupil  being  taught  a  science;  and  he  was  dissatis- 
fied. Further,  the  spell  of  Lant  Carpenter  was  upon  him, 
and  powerfully  influenced  him.      Again,   the  death   of  a 


EDUCATION  19 

distant  kinsman,  Henry  Turner,  a  not  highly  gifted  but 
saintly  young  minister,  deeply  moved  him.^  Yet  again, 
and  more  significant  than  all  other  circumstances,  the 
vocation  whereto  he  was  called,  while  Henry  Turner  yet 
lived,  and  before  he  knew  Lant  Carpenter,  was  declaring 
itself  within  him.  At  length  the  conviction  took  form  that 
iron  and  steel  were  not  the  materials  in  which  he  was  to 
work,  but  thought  tempered  in  the  fire  of  spirit. 

The  announcement  of  his  desire  to  become  a  minister 
brought  disappointment  to  his  father,  who  saw  an  exchange 
of  a  profession  that  promised  a  comfortable  hvelihood  for 
one  which,  outside  the  Establishment,  meant  the  crust  of 
well-nigh  irremediable  poverty.  Too  wise,  however,  to 
attempt  to  thwart  the  wishes  of  his  son  in  such  a  matter, 
he  offered  to  incur  the  expense  of  his  needful  education. 

The  year  at  Derby  we  may  well  believe  not  without 
value  to  his  future  work ;  the  Pontifex  Maximus  who  will 
throw  his  arch  from  this  world  over  to  the  other  may  be 
helped  by  experience  of  terrestrial  bridge-building.  It 
was,  too,  of  great  significance  to  him  personally.  He 
boarded  in  the  family  of  a  dissenting  minister.  Rev.  Ed- 
ward Higginson,  who  had  a  daughter  of  about  James'  age. 
The  rest  is  the  old  story  that  is  always  new.  They  took 
the  situation  somewhat  too  reasonably  for  ideal  lovers. 
Too  young,  as  was  thought,  for  engagement,  they  agreed 
to  leave  the  matter  as  it  was,  not  seeing  each  other,  or 
corresponding  save  at  distant  intervals,  until  the  years 
of  study  were  completed.  Then,  if  their  present  mind 
continued,  all  should  be  according  to  their  hearts'  desire. 
The  years  of  waiting  only  proved  their  constancy,  and 
their  hope  for  each  other  was  fulfilled  in  marriage. 

At  the  time  when  James  Martineau  decided  on  college 
training  preparatory  to  the  ministry,  the  great  historic  uni- 

1  In  his  address  on  the  occasion  of  his  leaving  Manchester  New  College 
he  speaks  of  "  Henry  Turner,  whose  death  was  my  conversion." 


20  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

versities  of  England  were  closed  to  such  as  would  not  sign 
the  articles  of  the  Church  of  England.  The  expense,  too, 
of  attending  one  of  them  might  have  been  too  severe  a  tax 
upon  the  family  exchequer.  The  college  chosen  was  the 
Manchester  College,  then  at  York.  Historically  this  col- 
lege succeeds  the  famous  Warrington  Academy,  that 
Priestley  served,  but  which  expired  after  a  brief  and  bril- 
liant career  of  twenty-nine  years.  These  were  the  days  of 
heroic  and  disheartening  struggle  for  "free  learning"  in 
England.^  Six  institutions,  succeeding  one  another,  had 
in  less  than  a  century  borne  aloft  the  torch  ere  Warrington 
took  it;  ^  and  now  Warrington  had  let  it  fall.  With  a  faith 
in  the  principle  which  defeat  could  not  vanquish,  the 
friends  of  "  free  learning  "  founded  at  once  the  Manchester 
College,  or  Manchester  Academy,  as  it  was  at  first  called ; 
which  for  more  than  a  century  has  borne  the  torch  success- 
fully. This  College,  however,  has  been  remarkable  for  its 
peripatetic  tendency.  It  received  its  first  class  at  Man- 
chester in  1786.  In  1803  it  was  moved  to  York.  Thence 
it  was  returned  to  Manchester  in  1840.  In  1853  it  was 
moved  to  London;  and  in  1889  to  Oxford.  Here  we  will 
hope  that  its  peregrinations  are  over,  and  that  it  may  long 
diffuse  its  light.^ 

^  The  phrase  "free  learning"  occurs  very  frequently  in  occasional  ad- 
dresses at  this  College,  and  it  has  a  meaning  to  our  English  brethren  which 
we  in  America  can  scarce  appreciate.  It  has  tacit  reference  to  the  persistent 
opposition  of  the  State  Church  to  whatever  "  university  learning"  she  did 
not  foster  and  direct.  And,  as  the  enjoyment  of  this  implied  subscription 
to  her  creed,  her  attitude  meant  the  ban  of  ignorance  upon  such  as  could 
not  gather  within  her  fold.  The  struggles  for  "  university  learning  "  in  Eng- 
land in  the  face  of  this  opposition  constitute  one  of  the  heroic  chapters  of 
English  history. 

2  See  a  very  interesting  and  instructive  speech  by  Rev.  Alexander  Gor- 
don on  the  occasion  of  the  one  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  founding  of 
the  College ;  also  an  address  by  Dr.  Martineau  on  the  same  occasion. 
Both  may  be  found  in  the  volume  entitled  Theology  and  Piety  Alike  Free. 

*  In  its  various  changes  the  College  has  undergone  corresponding 
changes  in  its  official  designation.     In  its  first  Manchester  period  it  was 


EDUCATION  21 

In  all  these  various  stages  it  has  been  true  to  one  cardi- 
nal principle,  that  of  absolute  religious  freedom.  Of  creed 
subscription  as  a  condition  of  university  learning  it  has  left 
to  the  State  institutions  an  ungrudged  monopoly.^ 

The  purpose  of  the  College,  as  quoted  in  an  address  of 
its  first  Principal,  was  "  to  establish  a  plan  affording  a  full 
and  systematic  course  of  education  for  divines  —  and  pre- 
paratory instructions  for  the  other  learned  professions  —  as 
well  as  for  civil  and  commercial  life,"  It  was  thus  a  college 
of  divinity  and  of  general  culture  in  one.  The  number  the 
College  has  educated  has  never  been  large ;  in  its  earlier 
years  the  number  that  took  courses  in  Theology  was  very 
small.  Yet  not  only  has  it  filled  a  most  important  place 
as  an  institution  of  learning  in  which  the  higher  problems 
of  thought  could  be  traversed  without  predetermined  con- 
clusion, but  its  record  is  a  proud  one.  In  a  roll-call  of  its 
students  not  a  few  of  honored  name  and  laurelled  brow 
should  answer.  In  its  professors  it  has  had  some  of  the 
fairest  ornaments  of  England's  learning. 

In  its  theology  the  freedom  of  its  spirit  has  forbidden  it 
to  be  stationary.  In  its  first  Manchester  period,  under 
Thomas  Barnes,  it  represented  the  later  development  of 
English  Presbyterianism,  mildly  looking  towards  Arianism. 
In  the  York  period,  under  Charles  Wellbeloved,  we  per- 
haps may  say  that  it  accomplished  the  transition  to  the 
older  type  of  Unitarianism.  In  the  second  Manchester 
period  it  represented  that  type  of  thought  in  its  completer 
unfolding.  When  the  College  reached  London,  it  came 
under  the  principalship  of  John  James  Tayler,  and,  follow- 
simply  Manchester  Academy.  At  York  it  was  Manchester  College,  York. 
On  its  return  to  Manchester  it  became  Manchester  New  College,  Manchester. 
At  London  it  became  Manchester,  New  College,  London,  and  at  Oxford, 
Manchester  New  College,  Oxford.  Later  its  official  designation  was  changed 
to  Manchester  College. 

1  Oxford  and  Cambridge  have  abandoned  creed  subscription  save  for 
the  theological  professor. 


22  JAMES  MARTINEAU 

ing  the  lead  of  his  large  thought  and  learning,  it  took  on 
Unitarianism  of  the  more  modern  type,  which  anon  under 
Martineau  it  further  unfolded,  and  now  under  Drummond 
reflects  in  its  fullest  development.  In  its  lecture-rooms  for 
many  years  Unitarianism  as  such  has  had  but  an  incon- 
spicuous place  in  truth's  large  inclusiveness.  It  is  a  school 
of  Divinity,  not  the  arsenal  of  a  sect. 

It  was  in  the  York  period  that  young  Martineau,  in  the 
year  1822,  sought  admission.  The  course  was  five  years; 
the  first  three  devoted  to  studies  of  a  general  character, 
the  last  two  to  Theology.  Hebrew  was  taken  through  the 
entire  course. 

The  college  work  was  pressed  with  great  earnestness ; 
John  Kenrick  twice  mentions  his  pupil's  "  intemperate 
study ;  "  also  he  speaks  of  his  "  care  of  research  "  and  of  his 
"  minute  accuracy."  He  worked  by  a  theory,  oftener  com- 
mended than  adopted,  of  which  he  spoke  in  later  years. 
"  I  remember,"  said  he,  "  thinking  that  the  use  of  educa- 
tion was  to  correct  the  weakness  of  nature,  rather  than  to 
develop  its  strength,  which  would  take  care  of  itself;  and 
so  I  gave  double  time  to  whatever  I  disliked,  and  reserved 
my  favorite  studies  for  spare  moments  of  comparatively 
tired  will." 

The  College  did  not  have  the  facilities  deemed  indispen- 
sable in  such  institutions  now.  He  found  in  it,  however, 
two  essentials  to  rapid  progress,  —  to  such  a  pupil  the  only 
two,  —  studies  equal  to  his  powers,  and  guidance  equal  to  his 
need.  He  was  taught  the  Calculus  by  the  fluxional  rather 
than  the  differential  method,  which  he  afterwards  had  rea- 
son to  regret;  and  Hebrew  without  the  vowel  pointings, 
which  must  have  added  to  the  toil  of  learning.^     However, 

^  A  note  from  John  Kenrick  begets  the  suspicion  that  tracts  of  learning 
were  sometimes  traversed  rather  than  explored.  lie  thought  a  year  at  Got- 
tingen,  where  they  went  through  only  one  evangelist,  one  prophet,  three  or 
four  epistles,  or  three  centuries  of  ecclesiastical  history,  not  equal  to  a  year 
at  York,  where  Wellbeloved  was  in  the  habit  of  going  through  the  Old  or 


EDUCATION  23 

at  the  end  of  five  years  he  stepped  forth  into  life  with 
thoroughly  disciplined  faculties,  together  with  a  store  of 
mathematical  and  physical  science,  of  classical  languages 
and  literatures,  of  history,  logic,  philosophy,  theology, 
that  gave  him  firm  footing  as  an  educated  man,  and  ample 
equipment  for  entering  on  his  chosen  career. 

This  summary,  however,  hardly  conveys  the  full  signifi- 
cance of  his  college  years.  Like  all  deep  natures,  his  was, 
then  and  ever  after,  extremely  susceptible  to  personal  in- 
fluence ;  and  in  college,  as  in  the  school  at  Bristol,  he 
was  most  fortunate  in  this.  The  number  of  students  was 
small,  —  there  were  ten  only  in  his  class,  and  he  had  but 
three  comrades  in  Divinity;  so  that  the  pupil  enjoyed  a 
closeness  of  contact  with  his  teachers  which  a  thronged 
lecture-room  makes  impossible.  The  closeness  of  this 
relation  was  further  provided  for  by  the  smallness  of  the 
number  of  teachers.  Many  years  later,  contrasting  the 
Manchester  New  College  from  which  he  retired  as  Princi- 
pal with  the  Manchester  College  in  which  he  studied,  he 
mentioned  the  fact  that  the  subjects  taught  at  the  later 
date  by  fourteen  teachers  were  taught  by  three  at  the 
earlier ;  and  he  was  clearly  of  opinion  that  the  advantage  is 
not  wholly  with  the  more  extended  division  of  labor  which 
is  now  prevailing.  Then  was  the  "  pluralist"  teacher,  now 
the  "  specialist ;  "  and,  for  purely  educational  advantage,  he 
found  much  to  urge  in  favor  of  the  pluralist.  Another 
advantage,  however,  which  he  did  not  mention,  but  which 
he  surely  would  have  recognized,  is  this:  Where  now  the 
student  receives  his  instruction  from  many  teachers,  and 
so  meets  them  at  but  a  single  point,  and  feels  their  influence 
but  slightly,  he  then,  in  receiving  his  instruction  in  many 
subjects  from  few  teachers,  met  them  at  many  points,  and 
so  experienced  from  them  the  full  weight  of  their  intellect 

the  New  Testament.  On  this  basis  of  comparison  modern  views  of  learning 
would  certainly  give  to  Gottingen  the  preference. 


24  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

and  character.  Where  the  intellect  was  great  and  the 
character  was  high,  this  was  a  circumstance  not  to  be  re- 
garded lightly.  Such  were  the  intellect  and  character  of 
two  of  Dr.  Martineau's  teachers,  John  Kenrick  and  Charles 
Wellbeloved. 

John  Kenrick,  in  the  largeness  of  his  attainments,  must 
have  stood  high  among  the  first  scholars  of  his  day.  Cer- 
tainly in  his  line  there  was  no  institution  in  England  whose 
fame  he  would  not  have  advanced,  and  any  congress  of 
scholars  would  have  applauded  his  erudition.  His  studious 
and  uneventful  life  has  not  called  forth  a  biography,  and 
the  encyclopaedias  have  for  most  part  passed  him  by; 
so  that  his  record,  save  in  the  affectionate  memories  of 
those  who  were  near  him,  is  somewhat  dim.  Nor  had 
he  the  genius  for  prolific  book-making,  such  as  charac- 
terizes, for  instance,  Max  Miiller;  and  so  he  failed  of  that 
eclat,  sometimes  rather  cheap,  which  a  voluminous  author- 
ship may  win.  Yet  his  volumes,  though  few,  entitled  him 
to  the  student's  gratitude  and  the  scholar's  admiration. 
He  was  the  translator  of  Zumpt's  Latin  Grammar;  he  was 
one  of  the  earliest  to  undertake  the  preparation  of  popular 
manuals  for  Greek  and  Latin  study,  which  have  made  the 
approaches  to  those  languages  in  these  modern  days  so 
much  more  easy  and  delightful.  He  published  two  vol- 
umes on  Egypt,  —  Egypt  of  Herodotus  and  Ancient  Egypt 
itnder  the  Pharaohs,  of  which  the  worst  that  can  be  said 
is,  that  they  are  not  enriched  with  the  results  of  investiga- 
tions that  have  followed  them.  He  published  a  volume  on 
Persia,  which  for  forty  years  has  held  its  place  without 
serious  challenge.  His  more  important  books  were  the 
outcome  of  his  college  work ;  and  it  was  the  cause  of 
learning  they  were  designed  to  serve,  not  popular  favor 
they  were  put  forth  to  win.  So,  while  written  in  a  style 
singularly  clear  and  forcible,  his  matter  is  offered  without 
dilution   or   condiment,  —  the   solid    meat  of  learning   in 


EDUCATION  25 

which  healthy  appetite  may  rejoice,  not  the  beef-tea  which 
feeble  stomachs  can  receive. 

He  studied  theology  with  thought  of  the  ministry,  but 
from  this  the  needs  of  Manchester  College  drew  him  aside. 
From  such  religious  writings  as  he  left,  it  seems  clear  that 
in  him  a  great  theologian  was  sacrificed  to  a  great  pro- 
fessor in  another  field.  As  already  indicated,  his  special 
lines  of  study  were  classical  and  historical.  His  ability  to 
enter  into  a  language,  to  grasp  its  details  and  absorb  its 
spirit,  was  of  the  first  order.  When  a  young  man  he  had 
the  privilege  of  a  year  in  Germany,  and  availed  himself  of 
an  opportunity  to  practise  Latin  conversation  with  Zumpt. 
Zumpt  afterwards  remarked  of  his  German  that  it  differed 
from  a  native's  only  in  its  extreme  purity,  — "  correct 
literary  speech  without  a  trace  of  local  colouring."  ^  A 
student  of  language  must  deal  much  in  the  minutiae  of 
learning;  and  for  this  reason  the  classic  tongues  have  been 
a  field  in  which  pedantry  has  prospered.  Professor  Kenrick, 
however,  brought  to  them  the  patient  research  of  the  in- 
vestigator, together  with  the  broad  view  and  deep  insight 
of  the  philosopher.  His  was  the  order  of  mind  to  which 
Comparative  Philology  owes  its  being;  and,  had  not  his 
work  led  him  in  a  somewhat  different  direction,  it  is 
hardly  to  be  doubted  that  he  might  have  stood  with  the 
Schlegels  and  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt  among  the  leaders 
of  that  noble  science. 

The  same  order  of  ability  he  brought  to  the  study  of 
history.  With  untiring  patience  in  the  scrutiny  of  details 
he  combined  the  clearest  perception  of  the  forces  by  which 
history  is  ruled.  For  this  reason  his  books,  even  when 
they  need  the  correction  of  more  recent  knowledge,  are 
yet  profitable :  they  are  the  kind  of  books  from  which  we 
gather  wisdom  as  well  as  learning;  they  are  unambitious 
in  aim,  modest  in  pretension,  but  wearing  on  every  page 
the  impress  of  a  master  mind. 

1  Martineau's  Essays,  Reviews;  and  Addresses,  vol.  i.  p.  404. 


26  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

He  was  a  sun  that  did  not  need  a  solar  system  in  which 
to  shine ;  for  thirty-five  years  the  httle  class-room  at 
Manchester  College  was  his  field  of  toil,  and  there  is  no 
evidence  that  he  was  ever  haunted  by  the  consideration 
whether  his  influence  reached  beyond  or  no.  Mr.  Mar- 
tineau  thinks  that  of  his  title  to  be  heard  in  the  high 
debates  of  European  scholarship,  he  could  not  have  been 
unconscious.  He  was,  however,  one  of  those  rare  souls 
whose  satisfaction  in  simple  duty  makes  a  small  place 
large ;  and  the  "  last  infirmity  of  noble  mind  "  was  ever 
far  away  from  him.  His  great  pupil  bears  witness  to  him 
as  "  above  ambition,  incapable  of  pretence,  eager  to  see 
things  as  they  are,  and  assured  that,  through  the  darkness 
that  sometimes  enfolds  them,  the  only  guide  is  the  un- 
swerving love  of  truth ;  and,  accepting  life  for  service, 
not  for  sway,  he  never  measured  his  sphere  to  see  whether 
it  was  small  or  great,  but  deemed  it  enough  to  bear  his 
witness  where  he  stood,  and  help,  as  he  might,  the  com- 
panions of  his  way."  This  will  do  for  him ;  but  there  is 
another  aspect  of  the  matter  respecting  which  satisfaction 
is  not  so  easy.  How  came  it  that  he  was  so  little  known? 
That  his  name  is  not  written  beside  the  names  of  Boeckh 
and  Lachmann  is  easily  explained :  he  did  not  measure 
himself  against  their  problems ;  at  any  rate,  did  not  par- 
ticipate in  their  discussions.  That  his  reputation,  however, 
was  hardly  insular  suggests  some  fault  in  his  environment. 
To  be  sure,  he  had  no  Eiffel  Tower  from  which  to  shine ; 
but  neither  was  his  candle  hidden  under  a  bushel ;  and 
its  pure  white  beam  shone  clear.  The  explanation  at 
once  suggested,  it  is  to  be  feared,  is  too  obvious:  he 
represented  that  nonconformity  which  to  English  church- 
dom  is  a  Nazareth  out  of  which  no  good  thing  is  expected, 
yet  out  of  which  how  frequently  have  the  best  things 
come.  When  Matthiae's  Greek  Grammar,  very  celebrated 
in  its  day,  after  a  considerable  growth  through   several 


EDUCATION  27 

editions  in  Germany,  needed  a  revised  and  complete  Eng- 
lish translation,  the  Bishop  of  London,  who  had  the  task  in 
hand,  settled  upon  Professor  Kenrick  as  one  to  be  intrusted 
with  the  labor.  Accordingly  the  work  was  published 
under  his  editorial  care.  The  printer  sent  proof  not  only 
to  Professor  Kenrick,  but  to  the  Bishop  as  well ;  and  in  it 
the  editor's  name  appeared,  "  Rev.  John  Kenrick."  The 
Bishop  erased  the  "  Rev.,"  and  at  the  same  time  wrote  to 
the  printer  explaining  that  it  was  impossible  to  concede 
that  title  to  one  not  in  Holy  Orders.^  The  Rt.  Rev. 
could  see  the  scholar,  but  a  nonconformist  Rev.  was 
impossible.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  the  spirit  that  cannot 
see  the  nonconformist  Rev.  will,  save  in  rare  exceptions, 
fail  also  to  see  the  nonconformist  scholar;  at  least,  will 
but  dimly  discern  his  merit  and  stingily  measure  off  his 
fame. 

As  to  the  order  of  his  mind,  he  was  little  speculative, 
perhaps  too  little.  The  classic  poets  and  orators  and 
historians  stirred  his  enthusiasm,  but  not  the  classic  phi- 
losophers in  like  degree.  A  page  of  Demosthenes  was 
more  congenial  to  him  than  a  page  of  Aristotle,  and  the 
Histories  of  Tacitus  than  the  Disputations  at  Tusculum. 
In  all  his  investigations  in  whatever  field  it  was  objective 
evidence  he  sought,  and  with  which  alone  he  was  satisfied. 
On  one  side  this  may  imply  limitation ;  it  was  limitation, 
however,  that  afforded  the  negative  value  of  protection. 
It  saved  him  from  illusions  to  which  the  theorizer  is  ever 
liable,  and  spared  his  pupils  the  brilliant  vagary.  Whether 
in  the  realm  of  myth,  or  legend,  or  ancient  inscriptions, 
or  laws,  or  institutions,  it  was  with  feet  he  walked,  never 
with  wings  he  flew.  He  was  one,  therefore,  from  whom 
to  derive  solid  erudition.  Likewise  he  was  one  to  set  the 
example  and  instil  the  spirit  of  patient,  slow-footed,  and 
toilsome  investigation. 

1  Martineau's  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  i.  p.  410. 


28  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

As  to  his  conduct  in  the  class-room,  we  have  hints  here 
and  there,  and  Dr.  Martineau  has  borne  suggestive  testi- 
mony. There  must  have  been  something  of  severity  in 
his  general  tone ;  possibly  too  little  tenderness  for  strug- 
gling stupidity;  for  shiftlessness  and  laziness  the  manifest 
impatience  or  the  biting  sarcasm  that  was  their  due.  His 
professor's  chair  was  doubtless  something  of  a  judgment 
seat  to  the  student  who  had  been  undutiful.  Yet  one 
of  his  pupils  tells  of  a  "  courtesy  that  bent  to  every  intel- 
lectual need,  a  sympathy  that  went  half-way  to  meet 
every  genuine  intellectual  aspiration."  ^ 

He  was  a  man  of  the  severest  literary  taste,  and  the 
bubbles  the  ambitious  student  might  bring  him  were  sure 
to  be  delivered  of  the  wind  that  had  blown  them.  To 
indelicacy  of  language  he  was  sensitive,  and  a  strained 
and  foolish  pedantry  was  certain  to  meet  a  summary 
judgment.  Mr.  Martineau  tells  of  a  student  who,  in  read- 
ing from  Tacitus  an  account  of  some  German  tribes  who 
wore  braccas,  stopped  at  the  word.  "Well,  what  does 
braccas  mean?"  The  student  blushingly  replied,  "A 
species  of  habiliment  for  covering  the  lower  part  of  the 
body."  "  Humph,  Mr.  B.,  commonly  called  breeches." 
Thus  under  his  criticism  was  language  ever  brought  down  to 
the  dimensions  of  things  and  made  correctly  to  name  them. 

With  respect  to  his  instruction  Mr.  Martineau's  own 
testimony  had  best  be  quoted.  Speaking  especially  of 
his  classical  instruction,  he  says :  "  In  Mr.  Kenrick's  treat- 
ment of  every  subject,  there  seemed  to  be  one  constant 
characteristic,  —  a  comprehensive  grasp  of  its  whole  out- 
line, with  accurate  scrutiny  of  its  separate  contents.  Noth- 
ing fragmentary,  nothing  discursive,  nothing  speculative, 
broke  the  proportions  or  disturbed  the  steady  march  of 
his  prearranged  advance.  His  prolegomena  to  every 
classical  text  furnished  a  compendium  of  its  hterary  his- 

^  Rev.  Charles  Beard. 


EDUCATION  29 

tory,  and  reproduced  the  conditions  of  ancient  life,  civic, 
legal,  domestic,  personal,  under  which  it  arose.  The  read- 
ing of  it  in  class  was  marked  by  a  similar  completeness : 
nothing  was  allowed  to  slip  by  without  coming  into 
the  full  focus  of  elucidation :  grammatical  construction, 
textual  criticism,  archaeology,  dialect,  geography,  dates, 
graces  or  defects  of  style,  all  were  brought  into  distinct 
view;  yet  without  inducing  any  tedious  slowness  in  the 
progress,  or  killing  out  the  spirit  of  the  piece."  His  testi- 
mony to  his  instruction  in  ancient  and  modern  history  is 
not  less  emphatic.  It  seems  not  strange,  therefore,  that 
fifty  years  after  he  left  the  class-room  he  should  be  able 
to  testify  that  he  brought  thence  a  "  standard  of  philologi- 
cal accuracy,  of  historic  justice,  of  literary  taste,"  that  had 
directed  his  "  aspirations  ever  since." 

The  features  of  Charles  Wellbeloved  are  less  easy  to 
outline,  though  the  materials  at  hand  are  sufficient  to  show 
what  manner  of  man  he  was.  During  the  York  period  of 
the  College,  a  period  of  thirty-seven  years,  he  was  its 
Principal.  All  this  time  he  was  pastor  of  a  church  to 
which  he  gave  the  long  ministry  of  fifty-four  years.^  Per- 
haps he  was  not  a  man  of  Olympian  mould,  yet  from  the 
magnitude  of  his  work  and  the  quality  of  his  influence  one 
not  to  be  passed  indifferently. 

Mrs.  Catharine  Cappe  in  her  Memoirs  speaks  of  his 
"  humility,  his  disinterestedness,  his  varied  talents,  his  de- 
sire for  knowledge,  especially  religious  knowledge,  his 
freedom  from  prejudice,  and  his  manifold  piety."  Thus 
he  impressed  her  when,  a  young  man  of  twenty-three,  he 
came  to  York  to  assist  her  husband  in  his  pastoral  office. 

1  The  ministry  of  his  predecessor,  Mr.  Cappe,  was  forty-six  years.  John 
Kenrick  very  well  remarks  :  "  It  is  not  common  to  find  a  pastoral  connec- 
tion lasting  even  the  shorter  of  these  terms ;  that  two  in  succession  should 
fill  up  a  century  must  be  a  very  rare  occurrence."  Memoir  of  the  Late 
Charles  Wellbeloved,  p.  228. 


30  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

She  also  quotes  her  husband,  himself  a  saint  and  scholar, 
as  saying :  "  This,  my  dear,  is  the  very  young  man  I 
wanted;  he  will  be  eminent  in  his  day."  John  Kenrick, 
also,  writing  of  him  after  his  death  and  from  many  years 
of  intimate  acquaintance,  says :  "  The  characteristic  feature 
of  Mr.  Wellbeloved's  mind  was  benevolence.  It  beamed 
in  his  eye;  it  spoke  in  his  voice;  it  diffused  itself  over  his 
manner,  which  was  kind  and  courteous  to  every  one,  of 
whatever  rank  or  condition,  with  whom  he  had  intercourse. 
It  might  truly  be  said  of  him  that  he  was  a  '  man  made  to 
be  loved.'  "  ^  We  learn  from  the  same  writer  of  an  official 
relation  which  he  held  with  the  York  Lunatic  Asylum. 
He  says  of  him  that  "  his  benevolence  led  him  to  feel  a 
lively  interest  in  those  who  were  suffering  from  this  griev- 
ous affliction;  he  was  convinced  of  the  power  of  gentleness 
and  kindness  to  remove  what  severity  only  tended  to 
aggravate.  He  felt  none  of  that  undefinable  terror  of  the 
insane  which  affects  many  persons  of  stronger  nerves  and 
greater  physical  courage,  but  mixed  freely  and  fearlessly 
among  them.  His  voice  and  manner  were  peculiarly  suited 
to  soothe  a  troubled  mind  and  win  confidence,  and  his 
sagacity  pointed  out  to  him  how  their  delusions  were  most 
effectually  to  be  dealt  with."^  These  touches  bring  before 
us  a  man  of  peculiarly  gentle  mould,  of  sympathetic 
nature,  of  winning  grace.  So  constantly  were  these  fea- 
tures manifest,  that  those  near  him  did  not  know  until  his 
lips  confessed,  that  he  was  naturally  of  a  choleric  temper 
of  which  only  through  long  and  patient  watchfulness  had 
he  gained  the  mastery. 

Such,  however,  was  only  one  aspect  of  the  man.  Under 
his  soft  glove  was  a  hand  that  was  capable  of  a  grasp  that 
was  strong ;  he  was  ruled  by  the  finest  and  most  exacting 
moral   sense,  to  which   no  services  were   to  be    declined 

1  Memoir  of  the  Late  Charles  Wdlbeloved,  pp.  244-245. 

2  Ibid.  pp.  139-140. 


EDUCATION  31 

because  onerous,  and  trifling  duties  were  sacred.  They 
were  taken,  too,  without  apparent  consciousness  of  aught 
deserving  in  them,  and  with  a  modesty  that  looked  upon 
his  best  and  utmost  as  the  least  that  fidelity  could  render. 

It  may  be  doubted  if  students  ever  had  before  them  a 
more  marked  example  of  methodical  and  tireless  and  con- 
secrated industry.  In  the  earlier  years  of  the  College  it 
was  not  the  teacher's  privilege  to  have  a  single  province 
of  learning  over  which  he  presided  ;  and  we  find  Mr.  Well- 
beloved  with  one  assistant,  who  rendered  some  service  in 
the  classical  and  mathematical  departments,  doing  the 
entire  work  alone.  That  work  embraced  the  work  of  an 
ordinary  college  together  with  the  courses  in  Theology. 
Applying  for  an  extra  tutor,  he  writes  :  "  I  have,  therefore, 
seldom  delivered  less  than  four,  generally  five  lectures  a 
day,  each  lecture  occupying  an  hour.  It  is  to  be  recol- 
lected that  the  preparation  for  most  of  the  lectures  cannot 
be  made  in  so  short  a  time  as  is  occupied  in  their  delivery. 
The  labour,  therefore,  which  I  have  undergone,  since  the 
Academy  was  removed  to  York,  has  been  greater  than  is 
consistent  with  other  duties  incumbent  upon  me  as  a  min- 
ister and  as  the  father  of  a  numerous  family,  and  also  with 
a  regard  for  my  health."  ^  With  this  labor  he  must  con- 
join the  multifarious  cares  which  the  ofiice  of  Principal 
devolved  upon  him,  and  answer  the  calls  of  his  church, 
reserving  only  Saturdays  for  the  preparation  of  his  ser- 
mons. Yet  with  this  vast  amount  of  routine  work,  he 
managed  to  devote  to  tranquil  study  a  daily  period  of 
time  which  many  a  modern  minister,  with  only  his  pas- 
toral office,  finds  impracticable.  This  may  be  taken  as  a 
sample  of  his  devoted  and  strenuous  life. 

Probably  he  was  not  a  scholar  in  the  august  sense  in 
which  John  Kenrick  was ;  yet  his  ready  mind,  through  its 
unrelenting  application,  gathered  a  stock  of  erudition  that 

1  Memoir,  etc.,  p.  91. 


32  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

was  large.  He  read  with  ease  the  Greek  and  Latin 
classics ;  he  had  a  thorough  acquaintance  with  Hebrew, 
Chaldee,  and  Syriac ;  he  had  a  considerable  acquaintance 
with  Arabic  ;  knew  French  and  Italian  well ;  and  "  under- 
stood German,"  his  biographer  tells  us,  "  so  far  as  to  be 
able  to  avail  himself  of  translations  and  commentaries  in 
that  language."  Of  course  he  was  widely  read  in  theol- 
ogy; he  was  an  accomplished  botanist  and  an  archaeolo- 
gist of  fame.  Notwithstanding  his  life  was  so  crowded,  he 
found  time  to  enrich  his  mind  with  more  genial  letters. 

His  work  done  mainly  in  the  first  half  of  our  century,  it 
goes  without  saying  that  he  represented  a  type  of  theology 
not  now  widely  prevailing,  and  a  certain  vigor  of  theologi- 
cal interest  not  common  in  his  theological  descendants. 
Yet  under  his  guidance  the  school  was  for  nothing  more 
remarkable  than  for  the  breadth  of  its  instruction.  He 
made  it  an  institution  of  theological  learning,  not  an 
arsenal  from  which  to  draw  the  weapons  of  sectarian  war- 
fare. John  Kenrick  speaks  of  his  theological  lectures  as 
critical  and  philological,  not  dogmatic.  In  his  curriculum, 
indeed,  one  finds  no  dogmatic  theology.  The  various 
subjects  of  theology  were  laid  upon,  difficulties  shown, 
differing  attitudes  stated,  copious  references  given,  and 
then  the  student  was  left  to  shape  a  conclusion  for  himself. 
So  he  went  forth  from  the  school  with  conclusions  he  had 
formed,  not  opinions  he  had  learned.  He  was  taught  to 
investigate;  and,  to  the  end  that  he  might  more  surely  do 
so,  his  teacher  laid  upon  his  mind  no  fashioning  influence. 
From  this  reserve  on  the  part  of  the  teacher  there  is 
reason  to  suspect  that  there  was  sometimes  discontent  on 
the  part  of  those  who  wanted  a  judgment  rather  than  data 
from  which  to  form  one.  It  is  easy  enough  to  imagine 
the  complainings  of  the  student  whose  indolent  mind 
asked  a  dogmatism  rather  than  that  supreme  respect  for 
his  intellect  that  made  dogmatism  impossible.    Which,  how- 


EDUCATION  33 

ever,  on  the  whole  must  be  productive  of  the  nobler 
results,  and  which  was  practically  wiser  for  a  mind  like 
Mr.  Martineau's,  we  need  not  pause  to  consider. 

Many  are  the  notices  scattered  here  and  there  of  this 
modest  scholar  and  devoted  instructor,  whom  the  world 
so  little  knows,  and  whom  no  university  ever  honored 
itself  by  honoring;  and  their  testimony  is  unanimous  to 
the  richness  of  his  intellect,  the  candor  of  his  judgment, 
the  saintliness  of  his  character,  the  nobleness  of  his  aim, 
and  the  success  of  his  endeavors.  One  of  these  notices, 
that  of  Dr.  Martineau  himself,  there  can  be  no  error  in 
quoting.  In  an  address  at  Manchester  New  College,  soon 
after  Mr.  Wellbeloved's  death,  he  said:  "Well  do  I  re- 
member the  respectful  wonder  with  which  we  saw,  as  our 
course  advanced,  vein  after  vein  of  various  learning  mod- 
estly opened  out;  the  pride  with  which  we  felt  that  we 
had  a  Lightfoot,  a  Jeremiah  Jones,  and  an  Eichhorn  all  in 
one,  yet  no  mere  theologian  after  all,  but  scarcely  less 
a  naturalist  and  an  archaeologist  as  well ;  the  impatience 
with  which,  out  of  very  homage  to  his  wisdom,  we  almost 
resented  his  impartial  love  of  truth  in  giving  us  the  most 
careful  epitome  of  other  opinions  with  scarce  the  sugges- 
tion of  his  own.  Many  of  us  have  found  the  notes  taken 
in  his  lecture-room  our  best  Cyclopaedia  of  divinity  during 
the  first  years  of  our  active  ministry,  when  books  were 
forced  aside  by  other  claims;  and  when  at  last  some 
leisure  for  independent  study  has  been  won,  and  the 
entrance  of  the  theological  sciences  upon  new  phases  has 
taken  us  into  untried  fields,  then  most  of  all,  if  I  may  gen- 
eralize from  my  own  experience,  have  we  been  thankful 
for  our  training  under  a  master  of  the  true  Lardner  type, 
candid  and  catholic,  simple  and  thorough,  humanly  fond 
indeed  of  the  counsels  of  peace,  but  piously  serving  every 
bidding  of  sacred  truth.  Whatever  might  become  of  the 
particular  conclusions  which  he  favoured,  he  never  justi- 

3 


34  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

fied  a  prejudice;  he  never  misdirected  our  admiration; 
he  never  hurt  an  innocent  feeHng  or  overbore  a  serious 
judgment;  and  he  set  up  within  us  a  standard  of  Christian 
scholarship  to  which  it  must  ever  exalt  us  to  aspire."  ^ 

Such  was  Dr.  Martineau's  education;  in  intimate  rela- 
tion with  such  minds  did  he  receive  it.  From  the  contact, 
too,  came  by  far  the  most  important  part  of  it,  —  the  incen- 
tives, not  the  lessons.  The  dryest  pedantry  that  ever  criti- 
cised a  text,  and  the  dullest  mechanism  ever  misnamed  a 
school  would  not  have  been  able  permanently  to  repress 
an  intellect  so  earnest ;  but  through  this  contact  a  quick- 
ening had  been  given  him,  a  standard  had  been  shown  him, 
his  possibilities  had  been  revealed  to  him.  The  opportu- 
nities he  enjoyed  have  a  meagre  look  when  compared  with 
those  of  England's  older  universities,  and  for  his  depriva- 
tion of  these  we  may  detect  in  him  now  and  then  a  quiet 
sigh,  —  the  utterance,  we  may  believe,  of  his  casual,  not 
his  habitual  mood.  To  President  Garfield,  to  sit  on  a 
log  with  Mark  Hopkins  was  to  attend  a  university;  Mr. 
Martineau  had  had  intimate  relation  with  three  Mark 
Hopkinses.  He  had  received  guidance  equal  to  his  need, 
and  inspirations  such  as  only  great  and  consecrated  minds 
can  give ;  and  we  see  not  how  he  could  have  been  better 
trained  for  the  career  that  now  opens  before  him. 

^  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  iv.  p.  54 


CHAPTER   III 

MINISTRY   IN   DUBLIN 

In  1827  Mr.  Martineau,  aged  twenty-two,  completed  his 
college  studies.  He  was  "  admitted  to  preach,"  but  did 
not  at  once  enter  upon  the  clerical  office.  His  friend  and 
former  teacher,  Lant  Carpenter,  in  consequence  of  over- 
work, was  obliged  for  a  time  to  suspend  his  labors,  and  for 
a  year  Mr.  Martineau  took  his  place  in  the  Bristol  school. 
It  was  a  year  of  excessive  toil  for  one  so  inexperienced. 
Not  only  must  he  conduct  the  school,  but  he  must  assist 
in  the  church  in  which  Dr.  Carpenter  was  wont  to  minister. 
The  pulpit  was  nominally  supplied  by  a  venerable  clergy- 
man ;  but  by  reason  of  infirmities  he  was  unequal  to  the 
task  of  regular  pulpit  ministration,  and  Mr.  Martineau  was 
called  upon  frequently,  often  at  short  notice,  to  take  his 
place. 

At  the  close  of  the  year.  Dr.  Carpenter's  health  not  being 
equal  to  the  two  offices  of  preacher  and  teacher,  Mr.  Mar- 
tineau was  asked  to  take  the  school.  He  had  admirable 
qualifications  for  a  teacher,  the  relation  would  have  been 
pleasant  and  fairly  remunerative,  and  the  offisr  was  in  a 
measure  tempting.  His  mind,  however,  had  been  fixed 
upon  the  ministry,  and  happily  this  had  the  stronger 
drawing.  Erelong  the  Eustace  Street  Presbyterian  Church 
in  Dublin  invited  him  to  the  co-pastoral  office-  The  pas- 
tor, Philip  Taylor,  grandson  of  the  Dr.  Taylor  of  Norwich 
fame,  after  fifty  years  of  service,  while  enjoying  the  ameni- 


36  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

ties  of  his  office,  was  to  devolve  its  burdens  upon  younger 
shoulders. 

On  going  to  Dublin  he  was  attended  by  his  sister  Rachel, 
who  superintended  the  establishment  of  his  home.  He 
planned  to  take  pupils,  and  a  house  equal  to  his  needs 
could  not  be  rented ;  so,  with  the  aid  of  a  friend,  he  pur- 
chased one  at  an  expense  of  seven  hundred  pounds.  A 
few  months  later,  at  Christmas  time,  he  crossed  over  to 
England,  and  Helen  Higginson  returned  with  him  his  wife. 
Anon  another  came  to  bless  them,  a  baby  Helen,  an  angel 
visitant  that  stayed  not  long.  Erelong  a  son,  Russel,  was 
born  to  them,  destined  to  the  scholar's  quiet  toils  and  hon- 
orable success.^  In  due  time  there  was  another  daughter, 
Isabella,  now  Mrs.  Leyson  Lewis,^of  East  Farleigh  in  Kent 
County.  Such,  in  brief,  is  the  domestic  story  of  those 
Dublin  years. 

It  was  on  Sunday,  October  26,  1828,  that  he  received 
ordination.  The  service  was  according  to  Presbyterian 
usage ;  it  was  as  a  Presbyterian  that  he  began  his  work. 
His  Presbyterianism,  however,  was  English,  not  Scotch,  a 
distinction  which,  however  apparent  in  England,  needs  to 
be  pointed  out  in  America.  In  America  the  name  Presby- 
terian suggests  John  Knox  and  the  Assembly's  Catechism ; 
while  in  England  for  the  last  three  hundred  years  there 
has  been  a  Presbyterianism  that  writes  its  history  from  the 
days  of  Baxter,  whose  broad  and  tolerant  spirit  it  has  re- 
flected. A  ruling  principle  with  it  has  been,  that  there 
shall  be  no  binding  dogma.  With  respect  to  creed  sub- 
scription its  sentiment  was  voiced  by  Chillingworth,  "  To 
the   Bible   only  should   a  Protestant   subscribe."       It  has 

1  He  was  for  several  years  professor  of  Hebrew  in  Manchester  New 
College,  and  for  many  years  Assistant  Keeper  in  the  British  Museum.  He 
was  an  Orientalist  of  fame  and  a  user  of  twenty  languages.  He  was  also, 
as  is  testified  by  those  who  knew  him,  and  was  apparent  to  those  who  met 
him,  one  of  the  most  modest,  tlie  most  conscientious,  and  most  lovable  of 
men.     He  died  December  14,  1898. 

2  Died  January  5,  1900,  after  the  above  had  been  put  in  type. 


MINISTRY   IN   DUBLIN  37 

sought,  that  is,  to  build  on  the  rehgious  sentiment  while 
leaving  opinion  free. 

Dating  from  the  times  of  Baxter,  it  hardly  needs  to  be 
said  that  it  has  reflected  the  sterner  types  of  doctrine ;  but 
by  virtue  of  its  ruling  principle  it  has  been  ever  reaching 
forward  to  more  liberal  views ;  until  Unitarianism  came 
there  was  to  be  found  within  its  rank  the  best  advance 
upon  the  standards  of  orthodox  opinion  in  England. 
Indeed  it  is  the  antecedent  of  English  Unitarianism ;  and 
a  large  number  of  the  Unitarian  churches  in  England  to- 
day, and  nearly  all  those  of  Ireland,  are  Presbyterian  in 
their  history.  In  the  pamphlet  in  which  are  preserved  the 
services  of  Mr.  Martineau's  ordination,  printed  in  1829,  is 
a  note  which  tells  of  the  "  same  spirit  of  religious  freedom  " 
among  the  Unitarians  of  Boston  and  the  Unitarians  [Pres- 
byterians] of  Dublin.  One  year  later  suit  was  brought 
against  certain  of  the  Unitarianized  Presbyterians,  indi- 
rectly implicating  all  of  them,  to  recover  from  them  the 
chapels  and  trust  funds  their  expansive  views  were  believed 
to  have  forfeited. 

The  church,  then,  that  ordained  Mr.  Martineau,  although 
Presbyterian,  stood  for  the  heresy  of  the  day.  It  interests 
us  to  come  into  the  atmosphere  of  that  ordination  to  learn 
something  of  the  spirit  of  that  heresy.  The  sermon  was 
preached  by  Rev.  Joseph  Hutton;  and,  aside  from  a  slight 
Presbyterian  coloring,  there  was  nothing  in  its  prevailing 
tone  to  distinguish  it  from  the  ordinary  type  of  orthodox 
discourse.  His  subject  was  "The  Character,  Duties,  and 
Privileges  of  Christians,"  which  he  illustrated  not  with  far- 
reaching  thought,  but  in  a  spirit  of  most  fervid  loyalty  to 
his  Master.  "  To  be  Christ's,  implies  that  we  have  enlisted 
under  the  banners  of  the  cross  —  that  we  are  soldiers  and 
servants  of  the  Lord  Jesus  —  that  we  have  taken  the  oath 
to  be  faithful  to  our  Great  Leader,  the  Captain  of  our  Sal- 
vation —  that  we  will  perish  rather  than  desert  his  standard. 


38  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

or  betray  his  cause  —  that  we  have  renounced  the  world, 
and  wilHngly  forego  its  pomps  and  vanities,  and  pride 
and  pleasures,  to  be  with  Christ."  "  To  be  Christ's,  is  to 
call  no  man  master,  spiritually  speaking — to  acknowledge 
no  authority  in  religion,  but  the  Bible;  no  master  but 
Christ."  "  To  be  Christ's,  we  must  adhere  to  him  alone  ; 
—  alone,  I  say,  for  he  admits  no  copartnership,  nor  hath 
substituted  any  authority  in  his  place."  "  And  further,  we 
must  take  the  holy  Gospel,  and  search  for  ourselves,  to  find 
its  hidden  treasures ;  which  we  shall  doubtless  find,  if  we 
search  with  humility,  and  sincerity,  and  faith."  What  iiinst 
have  been  the  orthodoxy  to  which  this  was  heresy? 

But  further,  "  I  beseech  you,  brethren,  examine  for 
yourselves  often  and  closely,  whether  ye  be  lit  Christ.  Is 
your  piety  that  of  him,  who  passed  whole  nights  in  com- 
munion with  his  God  in  prayer?  .  .  .  Consider,  again  and 
again,  the  illustrious  example  of  every  virtue,  which  he  hath 
set  before  us ;  and  let  it  be  our  daily  prayer  to  God,  that 
he  would  assist  us  by  his  divine  grace  to  imbibe  more  and 
more  freely  of  this  heavenly  temper,  .  .  .  that  so  we  may 
be  Christ's  here,  and  his  for  ever."  These  passages  fairly 
illustrate.  The  sermon  sounds  no  depths  and  soars  to  no 
heights;  but  it  is  charged  with  a  sentiment  in  the  exuber- 
ance of  which  the  most  stalwart  orthodoxy  of  to-day 
would  find  superabundant  proof  of  Christian  discipleship. 

Following  the  sermon,  a  long  discourse  was  delivered 
by  Rev.  James  Armstrong  on  Presbyterian  Ordination. 
This  was  natural  and  appropriate  in  a  Presbyterian  church, 
flanked  on  the  one  side  by  Episcopacy  and  on  the  other 
by  Congregationalism.  It  was  but  slightly  shown,  as 
would  be  shown  to-day,  that  Presbyterianism  is  useful,  jus- 
tified by  experience,  a  fair  and  practicable  means  to  an 
end  that  is  most  desirable ;  it  was  mainly  shown  to  be  of 
divine  appointment,  which  makes  consideration  of  expedi- 
ency a  superfluity  and   an  impertinence.     He  who   said, 


MINISTRY   IN   DUBLIN  39 

"  Let  there  be  Light,"  also  decreed,  Let  there  be  Presby- 
ters.    "  We  maintain,"  said  he,  "  not  only  that  the  Bible  is 
an  unerring  rule  of  faith  and  conduct,  but,  also,  that  it  con- 
tains such  regulations  for  order,  and  directions  for  worship 
as  are  adapted  to  every  state  of  the  church.      Therefore, 
whatever  is  not  either  positively  directed  by  the  word  of 
God,  or  clearly  warranted  by  the  practice  of  our  Blessed 
Lord  and  his  Apostles,  we  feel  ourselves  compelled  to  re- 
ject as  the  invention  of  fallible  uninspired  men."     He  then 
goes  over  the  familiar  ground  of  debate  as  to  the  meaning  of 
7rpecr/3yT6po9  and  eV/cr/coTro?,  buttressing  his  arguments  with 
Scripture  texts,  and  explaining  the  usage  of  the  Apostolic 
Age.     He  brings  his  discussion  to  the  cHmax  with  the 
surely  evangelical  asseveration  that  "  we  aim  at  nothing 
but  the  primitive   purity  of  the  apostolical   constitutions, 
the  naked  simplicity  of  evangelical  truth,  and  that  liberty 
of  conscience  wherewith  the  Son  of  God   hath   made  us 
free.  .  .  .  We  preach  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  Him  crucified 
—  we  believe  that  He  alone  is  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the 
life  ;  and  that  there  is  none  other  name  under  heaven  where- 
by we  may  be  saved  —  we  place  our  confidence  in  him  as 
our  Saviour  and  Redeemer;   and  we  receive,  without  ques- 
tion, whatever  he  has  communicated  with  respect  to  the 
nature  of  the  Deity,  and  the  purposes  of  the  Divine  will" 

And  now  Mr.  Martineau ;  — and  here  we  read  not  only 
the  word  spoken  as  he  was  crossing  the  threshold  of  the 
ministry,  but,  so  far  as  we  know,  his  earliest  printed  word : 

"  Every  Minister  of  the  Gospel  I  conceive  to  be  the  ser- 
vant of  Revelation.  ...  By  the  authority  of  this  Revela- 
tion I  believe  myself  supported,  when  I  assume,  as  primary 
principles  in  the  conduct  of  my  ministry,  that  the  first  and 
simplest  religious  truths  are  incomparably  the  most  mo- 
mentous—  that  there  is  no  being  with  whom  we  have  so 
much  to  do  as  God;  and  that  as  all  religion  begins,  so 
also  does  it  end,  with  exhibiting  the  relation  which  man 


40  JAMES    MARTINEAU 

bears  to  his  Creator.  To  this  infinite  Being,  and  to  Him 
alone,  do  I  ascribe  every  conceivable  perfection.  He  is 
the  source  of  power,  to  whom  all  things  are  possible  — 
he  is  boundless  in  wisdom,  from  whom  no  secrets  can  be 
hidden —  He  is  love;  the  origin  of  all  good,  himself  the 
greatest;  and  the  dispenser  of  suffering  only  that  we  may 
be  partakers  of  his  holiness  —  He  is  spotless  in  holiness ; 
his  will  the  only  source  of  morality,  and  the  eternal 
enemy  of  sin  —  He  is  self-existent  and  immutable,  for  ever 
pervading  and  directing  all  things,  and  searching  all  hearts  ; 
the  Being  from  whom  we  came,  and  with  whom,  in  happi- 
ness or  woe,  all  men  must  spend  eternity. 

"  From  these  views  I  infer  that  it  is  my  first  office,  as  a 
Minister  of  Christ,  to  awaken  the  attention  of  my  people  to 
the  claims  of  this  one  infinite  Jehovah  upon  their  adora- 
tion, obedience  and  love.  As  I  believe  him  to  be  the  only 
scriptural  object  of  worship,  so  do  I  conceive  the  affec- 
tions implied  in  that  worship  to  be  the  greatest  glory  of 
the  human  soul,  and  to  be  absolutely  essential  to  the 
acceptable  discharge  of  duty  here,  and  to  participation  in 
the  felicities  of  heaven  hereafter.  I  am  conscious  of 
nothing  but  sincerity  in  saying,  that  to  inspire  in  others 
and  in  myself  a  devotion  ever  fervent  and  humble,  which 
shall  have  a  bearing  on  every  duty,  purify  every  thought, 
and  tranquillize  every  grief,  I  desire  to  make  the  main 
object  not  only  of  my  ministry,  but  of  my  life. 

"At  the  same  time  I  believe,  that  of  the  will,  the  pur- 
poses, perhaps  even  the  existence  of  Jehovah,  we  should 
have  remained  in  ignorance,  had  he  not  revealed  himself, 
partially  by  patriarchs  and  prophets  of  old,  and  more 
gloriously  by  Jesus  Christ,  his  well-beloved  Son.  Him 
I  acknowledge  as  the  Mediator  between  God  and  man, 
who  was  appointed  to  produce  by  his  life,  and  yet  more 
peculiarly  by  his  death,  an  unprecedented  change  in  the 
spiritual  condition  of  mankind,  and   to  open  a  new  and 


MINISTRY   IN   DUBLIN  4I 

living  way  of  salvation.  No  pledge  of  Divine  love  to  the 
human  race  impresses  me  so  deeply,  as  the  voluntary  death 
of  Jesus  Christ,  and  his  exaltation  to  that  position  which 
he  now  holds  above  all  other  created  beings,  where  he 
lives  for  evermore,  and  from  which  he  shall  hereafter  judge 
the  world  in  righteousness.  I  receive  and  reverence  him, 
not  merely  for  that  sinless  excellence,  which  renders  him 
a  perfect  pattern  to  our  race ;  but  as  the  commissioned 
delegate  of  Heaven,  on  whom  the  Spirit  was  poured  with- 
out measure  —  as  the  chosen  representative  of  the  Most 
High,  in  whom  dwelt  all  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily. 
As  authorities  for  our  duties,  as  fountains  of  consoling  and 
elevating  truth,  Jesus  and  the  Father  are  one :  and,  in  all 
subjects  of  religious  faith  and  obedience,  not  to  honour  him 
as  we  honour  the  Father,  is  to  violate  our  allegiance  to  him 
as  the  great  Captain  of  our  salvation.  When  Jesus  com- 
mands, I  would  listen  as  to  a  voice  from  heaven :  when  he 
instructs,  I  would  treasure  up  his  teachings  as  the  words  of 
everlasting  truth :  when  he  forewarns  of  evil,  I  would  take 
heed  and  fly  as  from  impending  ruin :  when  he  comforts,  I 
would  lay  my  heart  to  rest  as  on  the  proffered  mercy  of 
God  :  when  he  promises,  I  would  trust  to  his  assurances  as 
to  an  oracle  of  destiny." 

Then  follows  a  statement  of  his  duties,  as  he  conceives 
them,  growing  out  of  these  convictions,  and  a  confession  of 
the  Jewish  and  the  Christian  Scriptures  as  successive  reve- 
lations of  God,  together  with  the  obligations  they  devolve 
upon  him.  He  closes  thus  :  "  Full  well  do  I  know  that  I 
must  review  hereafter,  in  the  unveiled  presence  of  God,  the 
ministry  on  which  I  have  now  entered ;  and  that  I  must 
then  meet  those  who  surround  me  now,  and  whose  spiritual 
interests  I  bind  myself  to  serve.  That  no  one  may  then 
appear  to  reproach  me  with  unfaithfulness  —  that  there 
may  be  no  wanderer  from  the  fold  of  Christ,  whom  my 
neglect   may  have   caused    to    stray,   is    the  earnest   and 


42  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

solemn  desire  which  I  now  profess  .before   God  and  my 
brethren." 

Brave  words  which  the  hfe  shall  qualify  as  to  the  letter, 
but  intensify  as  to  the  spirit. 

Such  was  Mr.  Martineau's  theological  temper  at  the  time 
of  ordination,  and  such  that  of  the  ministry  that  ordained 
him.     The  prayer,  the  charge,  are  in  like  tone.     Under 
these    so    orthodox  conceptions  were,  indeed,  departures 
from  the  standards  of  orthodox  opinion  of  which  only  the 
coming  years  should  reveal  the  significance.    Yet  here  and 
there  in  the  service  we  meet  a  word,  a  phrase,  which  be- 
trays dissatisfaction  with  the  relative  position,  which  shows 
that  these  almost  orthodox,  to  whom  the  Bible  was  an  in- 
spired volume,  and  Christ  the  Lord  and  Master,  chafed  at 
orthodox  objection  to  them.     Yet  in  the  light  of  ultimate 
issues  the  objection  was,  as  it  ever  has  been,  rightly  taken ; 
and  the  chafe,  then  as  ever  since,  as  unphilosophical  as 
unmanly.     "  If  you  go  thus  far,"  said  John  Henry  New- 
man to  his  brother,  "  you  will  go  farther."     It  may  be  at  a 
trifling    angle    that    one    railway  branches    from   another. 
Passengers   wave    salute    as   they  glide  on  side  by  side; 
through  many  miles  they  have  experience    of  the    same 
chmate  and  look  out  upon  the  hke  sceneries ;   they  disem- 
bark after  the  day's  journeying  and  find  the  like  life  around 
them  and  the  same  constellations  above  them ;  but  con- 
ceive the  lines  extended  far  enough  and  it  is  plain  that,  in 
due  time,  they  must  look  out  upon  most  widely  contrasted 
conditions, —  the    haze    of    tropic    sunsets,    the    blaze    of 
auroral  skies. 

The  settlement  of  Mr.  Martineau  was  in  its  outward  as- 
pects a  happy  one.  His  church,  born  of  the  Act  of  Uni- 
formity, had  behind  it  more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
of  honorable  and  inspiring  history.  It  had  been  ministered 
to  by  a  long  succession  of  able  and  devoted  pastors,  and 
so  had  gained  in  strength,  rather  than  contracted  infirmity, 


MINISTRY  IN  DUBLIN  43 

from  age.  It  had  local  standing  and  its  influence  was  wide. 
The  congregation  was  a  superior  one,  both  in  numbers 
and  intelligence.  It  had  wealth,  of  which  it  was  not  illib- 
eral in  the  use;  it  supported  an  almshouse  for  twelve 
widows;  it  had  a  school  for  boys,  another  for  girls.  It 
was  organized,  earnest,  appreciative,  harmonious.  Mr. 
Martineau  was  emphatically  the  minister  of  their  choice, 
and  admiration  deepened  into  affection  as  they  knew  him 
better.  We  may  doubt  not  there  were  troublesome  spirits 
enough  to  keep  a  minister  in  discipline,  but  on  the  whole 
he  seems  to  have  entered  into  a  pastoral  felicity  of  which 
most  ministers  dream,  but  which  very  few  attain. 

His  income  was  equal  to  his  needs ;  his  clerical  labors 
not  excessive.  Work,  however,  to  the  utmost  of  his 
strength  he  must  have,  and  for  this  he  had  provided.  His 
purpose  to  take  pupils  had  been  met  by  a  desire  on  the 
part  of  pupils  to  be  taken  ;  the  school  at  Bristol  had  broken 
up  on  his  leaving  it,  and  half  its  inmates  had  followed  him. 
He  took  into  his  family  some  students  of  the  Dublin  Uni- 
versity whom  he  tutored.  He  taught  Hebrew,  also  the 
higher  mathematics.  In  the  Calculus,  as  we  have  seen,  he 
had  been  taught  the  fluxional  notation ;  to  meet  the  needs 
of  his  pupils  he  now  taught  himself  the  differential. 

The  hymn-book  of  his  church  was  old  and  poor;  so  he 
compiled  a  new  one,  which  was  published  in  1831,  under 
the  title  of  Hymns  for  Christian  Worship.  It  was  a  small 
collection,  numbering  only  two  hundred  and  seventy-three 
hymns,  and  was  prepared  from  very  scanty  material.  In 
1830  he  delivered  a  sermon  on  Peace  in  Division}  which 
is  the  earliest  of  his  published  works.  We  read  it  now  not 
only  for  the  interest  it  awakens,  but  more  than  this,  for  the 
view  it  gives  us  of  the  Martineau  of  twenty-five.  Certainly 
it  does  not  seem  a  great  effort,  when  set  beside  some  of 
the  mighty  productions  of  his  riper  years ;  yet  the  author 

1  See  Studies  of  Christianity. 


44  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

of  the  Endeavors  and  the  Hours  of  Thought  is  here.  The 
elaborate  and  rhythmic  style,  the  profuse  yet  careful  met- 
aphor, the  gleaming  insights,  show  the  more  youthful 
photograph  of  our  maturer  friend. 

Those  Dublin  years,  in  a  word,  were  pleasant  and  pros- 
perous. In  the  pulpit,  indeed,  he  had  no  Whitefield  popu- 
larity; his  quiet  delivery,  together  with  the  severity  of  his 
intellectual  demands,  were  likely  to  incline  the  crowd  to 
follow  after  other  attractions.  For  the  serious,  earnest, 
thoughtful,  however,  he  had  the  magnetizing  word.  So- 
cially, though  the  least  obtrusive  of  men,  for  his  breadth, 
purity,  earnestness,  he  could  but  command  a  large  respect. 
Personally  he  had  his  attractions :  his  manners  were  ruled 
by  an  interior  courtesy,  his  temper  was  serene,  his  con- 
versation agreeable.  The  freshness  of  youth  was  upon  his 
features;  the  maturity  of  wisdom  was  on  his  lips;  the  light 
of  genius  was  in  his  eye. 

A  long  and  prosperous  ministry  here  we  should  natur- 
ally forecast  for  him.  A  difficulty,  however,  was  in  his 
path  which,  alas !  to  most  had  been  quite  the  opposite  of 
a  difficulty.  The  venerable  pastor  died,  and  Mr.  Martineau 
came  by  natural  succession  to  his  place.  To  his  surprise 
he  found  that  the  change  brought  an  addition  of  ;^ioo  to 
his  salary.  To  this  of  itself  we  may  presume  he  would  not 
have  objected ;  but  the  source  whence  it  came  raised 
scruples  which  tore  him  from  his  charge,  and  gave  a  new 
direction  to  his  career. 

The  ;^ioo  he  thus  succeeded  to  was  his  share  of  the 
Reghnn  Douum.     Of  this  he  had  not  heard  before. 

The  Rcghim  Donuin^  though  at  this  time  a  parliamentary 
grant,  was  originally,  as  the  name  implies,  a  royal  bounty. 
It  was  first  bestowed  by  Charles  II.  upon  the  Presbyterians 
of  Ireland,  a  sum  of  ^^"600  annually  in  order  to  secure  their 
loyalty.  Discontinued  for  a  time,  it  was  renewed  and  in- 
creased by  William  III.,  and  yet  again  by  George  I.     And 


MINISTRY  IN  DUBLIN  45 

not  to  Presbyterians  of  Ireland  alone  was  it  given;  the 
Presbyterians  of  England  and  some  other  nonconformist 
bodies  were  smiled  upon  in  like  manner,  though  less 
bountifully. 

In  its  intent  this  Bounty  was  at  first  of  the  nature  of  a 
bribe,  and  in  this  aspect  there  is  evidence  of  some  wincing 
at  receiving  it.  Baxter  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  it, 
and  returned  it  when  sent  to  him.  It  was  given,  however, 
ostensibly  for  the  support  of  poor  ministers  ^  or  their 
widows,  though  in  Ireland  it  seems  to  have  been  used  in  a 
more  general  way  for  the  support  of  the  ministry.  It  had 
gone  on  with  brief  interruptions  for  more  than  a  hundred 
years ;^  —  custom  had  established  it;  it  was  taken  as  the 
rain  and  the  sunshine,  —  the  more  approved  as  it  did  not 
imitate  the  bounty  of  heaven,  which  sends  rain  and  sun- 
shine on  all  alike.  It  supported  a  needy  ministry,  —  why 
should  it  not  ?  It  did  not  support  the  Quaker  or  the 
Catholic,  —  why  should  it?  That  it  was  a  good  thing  for 
the  government  to  support  Presbyterians,  Presbyterians 
were  not  unnaturally  agreed. 

Mr.  Martineau,  however,  took  a  different  view  of  it.  It 
was  customary, —  yes,  but  custom  can  consecrate  no  wrong. 
It  has  been  long  continued ;  —  many  an  error  we  are  fight- 
ing is  hoarier  still.  The  best  and  worthiest  have  received 
it  and  thought  no  wrong,  among  them  your  venerated 
predecessor.  Alas  !  the  holiest  are  not  infallible  ;  and  even 
plodding  virtue  cannot  be  helped  by  saintly  blindness. 
But  it  is  the  State  that  gives  it ;  let  the  State  take  care  of 
its  own  affairs.  It  is  indeed  the  State  that  gives  it,  but  it 
is  I  that  am  supposed  to  receive  it;  and  to  my  own  mas- 
ter must  I  be  true  or  false  in  the  matter.  In  recounting 
his  emotions  at  this  exigency  when  fourscore  and  five,  the 

1  See  Skeats'  Free  Churches  in  England,  pp.  319-321,  671. 

2  The  English  Kegium  Domim  was  discontinued  in  1850 ;  the  Irish  in 
1870. 


46  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

event  sixty   years  behind  him,  there  was  more  than  the 
usual  kindh"ng  in  those  mild  blue  eyes. 

He  quickly  decided  on  his  course.  He  might  indeed 
refuse  to  receive  the  money ;  but  that  might  ultimately 
mean  refusing  it  for  his  church,  which  his  fine  ethical  sense 
forbade.  One  of  two  things  must  be :  the  church  must 
itself  surrender  the  Bounty  or  he  and  they  must  part 
company. 

He  made  known  his  scruple  to  his  friends.  He  was  well 
satisfied  to  go  on  with  his  present  income,  but  even  were 
it  otherwise  this  fund  he  could  not  receive,  and  he  must 
make  his  most  emphatic  protest  against  it.  At  length  he 
addressed  a  letter  to  the  church  in  which  the  grounds  of 
his  objection  were  fully  and  earnestly  stated. 

Receiving  the  Royal  Bounty  he  conceived  to  be  placing 
him  in  a  relation  with  the  State  to  which  the  objections 
were  insurmountable.  First,  the  Bounty  was  of  the  nature 
of  a  "  religious  monopoly."  It  was  a  fund  belonging  to 
the  whole  people  diverted  to  the  benefit  of  a  few.  For 
what  all  the  people  contributcr  to  the  benefit  of  the  State, 
all  the  people,  he  argued,  should  receive  an  equivalent  in 
the  blessings  of  good  government.  The  governors,  he  de- 
clared, are  simply  trustees  of  the  governed,  and  when 
they  divert  from  the  common  fund  for  the  benefit  of  a  few, 
they  violate  their  trust.  The  Royal  Bounty  he  showed  to 
be  an  instance  of  such  misappropriation.  The  people 
gave  ;  only  Presbyterians  received.  Quakers,  Free  Think- 
ers, Catholics,  were  taxed  with  the  rest,  and  for  the  sup- 
port of  a  worship  in  which  they  did  not  participate  and 
with  which  they  had  no  sympathy.  Were  the  question 
brought  to  those  who  pay  this  fund  whether  they  would 
subscribe  for  the  maintenance  of  Presbyterian  worship, 
there  could  be  no  doubt  of  their  refusal.  It  was  not, 
therefore,  a  "  free-will  offering,"  but  an  "  exaction  upon 
reluctant  consciences."     Any  of  us,  he  pleads,  would  con- 


MINISTRY   IN   DUBLIN  47 

sider  it  a  hardship  to  be  compelled  to  aid  in  the  support 
of  the  Catholic  church ;  surely,  then,  we  depart  from  the 
Golden  Rule  when  we  inflict  upon  the  Catholic  a  hard- 
ship not  less  grievous.  The  system  was  inherently  unjust ; 
and  though  the  government  might  be  the  author,  yet  by 
receiving  the  Bounty  he  should  feel  himself  an  abetter,  of 
the  injustice. 

Such  was  his  first  objection ;  his  second  was  not  less 
weighty.  The  Bounty  made  a  sinecure  of  his  office.  The 
clergyman  labors,  but  the  labor  is  for  one  party,  the  con- 
gregation ;  the  remuneration  is  from  another,  the  State. 
He  thus  is  made  to  sustain  a  twofold  relation,  —  to  the 
people  for  whom  he  works,  to  the  government  for  which 
he  does  not.  Relatively  to  his  people  indeed  the  office  is 
no  sinecure ;  but  relatively  to  the  State  it  is.  To  entitle 
one  to  receive  this  fund  it  is  not  enough  that  he  be  a  good 
citizen ;  in  some  specific  way  he  must  be  in  the  employ  of 
the  government.  In  short,  he  is  in  the  employ  of  the 
State  or  not.  If  he  is,  then  his  office  is  that  of  a  State 
priesthood,  and  his  religion  Is  thereby  made  a  matter  of 
State  selection,  a  secularization  to  which  he,  Mr.  Martineau, 
could  not  be  a  party.  If  he  is  not,  then  he  has  remu- 
neration without  duty,  and  so  far  his  office  is  a  sinecure. 

Thirdly,  State  remuneration  seemed  to  him  to  hinder  the 
circulation  and  impede  the  progress  of  religious  thought. 
That  religion  may  bring  forth  its  fairer  fruits,  it  must  be 
unfettered  in  its  thought  and  utterly  free  in  its  utterance. 
To  these  ends,  anything  that  tends  to  call  forth  profession 
where  belief  is  wanting,  makes  it  for  one's  interest  to  be- 
lieve this  rather  than  that,  or  to  smother  the  utterance  of 
the  latest  and  fullest  conviction,  is  to  be  deprecated  and 
resisted.  To  just  this  is  there  a  natural  and  inevitable 
temptation  where  State  emolument  is  given  in  consequence 
of  some  particular  connection  and  forfeited  by  departure 
from  it.     There  is  a  constant  and  persuasive  appeal  to  self- 


48  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

interest,  to  which  —  he  does  not  say  it,  but  it  is  plain  that 
he  thinks  it  —  even  clerical  virtue  is  not  safe  in  exposure. 
The  free  utterance  and  natural  circulation  and  change  of 
religious  opinion,  there  is  a  constant  bribe  to  stay. 

Fourthly,  alliance  with  the  State  he  holds  to  be  inimical 
to  the  "  credit  and  influence  of  Christianity."  He  gives  it 
as  his  firm  conviction  that  more  unbelievers  have  been 
made  by  "  establishments  than  by  all  the  speculations 
which  friends  of  establishments  deem  so  dangerous." 
Wherever  it  is  known  that  there  is  personal  interest  in 
religious  profession  there  is  sure  to  be  widespread  distrust 
of  religious  sincerity.  It  will  be  suspected  that  you  "  hold 
for  pay  the  faith  you  are  paid  merely  for  holding." 

These  were  the  reasons  that  convinced  him  that  in  prin- 
ciple the  Royal  Bounty  was  wrong.  "  And  if  the  principle 
is  wrong,"  he  asks,  "  how  can  I  believe  the  practice  right?  " 
"  I  am  not  blind,"  says  he,  "  to  the  inconveniences  of  any 
general  plan  for  relinquishing  it;  but  if  in  its  abandonment 
I  see  difficulty,  in  keeping  it  I  see  wrong." 

Thus  was  the  issue  defined.  What  should  have  been 
the  decision  seems  clear  enough.  The  Bounty,  however, 
was  of  long  standing ;  this  view  of  it  was  novel ;  interest 
was  persuasive,  very  likely  blinding.  Abstract  right  must 
usually  fare  hard  in  its  first  encounter  with  a  wrong  that  is 
defended  by  custom  and  advantage ;  and  the  measure  of 
Mr.  Martineau's  success  is  eloquent  testimony  to  his  hold 
upon  his  people.  The  younger  members  rallied  to  his 
side,  and  the  contest  was  earnest.  In  the  final  decision 
Mr.  Martineau's  party  were  defeated  by  one  vote.  The 
letter  was  sent  to  the  congregation  the  last  of  October, 
and  he  resigned  on  the  thirteenth  of  November. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  the  thought  of  the  Catholics 
about  him  that  most  deeply  moved  him ;  they  practically, 
with  respect  to  Ireland,  the  national  church,  owing  indeed 
with  all  others  a  loyalty  to  the  common  nation,  but  entitled 


MINISTRY  IN   DUBLIN  49 

with  all  to  a  common  benefit;  yet  taxed  to  support  a 
worship  in  which  they  could  not  participate  and  which 
their  consciences  abhorred !  Our  minds  wander  back  to 
Mr.  Martineau's  ancestors,  driven  from  France  by  the 
terrors  of  a  Catholic  persecution.  We  remember  that  this 
persecution  was  consecrated  by  the  Pope  and  applauded 
by  Bossuet;  and  here  was  Mr.  Martineau  throwing  him- 
self into  the  breach  in  defence  -of  the  rights  of  Catholics  ! 

It  was  a  moral  contest  into  which  he  entered  —  to  his 
cost  in  either  issue.  If  he  won,  it  w^ould  be  at  the  forfeiture 
of  ;£"ioo  annually;  if  he  lost,  it  would  be, at  the  sacrifice  of 
his  church  to  which  he  was  strongly  attached.  This  was 
not  all  the  cost.  He  had  purchased  a  house,  as  we  have 
seen,  by  the  aid  of  a  friend.  Valuations  for  some  reason 
had  seriously  declined,  and  he  must  part  with  it  at  a  great 
sacrifice.  The  consequence  was  that  he  had  now  to  face 
the  future  with  a  young  family  and  a  heavy  debt.  Young 
life  is  brave,  but  it  seems  reasonable  to  suspect  that  for 
a  time  the  sun  did  not  rise  as  cheerily  as  usual,  and  that 
the  evening  damps  were  peculiarly  depressing. 


CHAPTER   IV 

MINISTRY   IN   LIVERPOOL 

By  his  attitude  towards  the  Regium  Dojuim,  Mr.  Martineaii 
had  practically  disqualified  himself  for  further  ministry 
among  the  Presbyterians  of  Ireland,  and,  as  a  minister, 
he  was  little  known  in  England.  Or  rather,  we  perhaps 
should  say,  he  was  better  known  than  he  supposed.  Some 
one  once  said  of  Gladstone  that  he  could  not  whisper  so 
low  in  London  as  not  to  be  overheard  in  Edinburgh;  Mr. 
Martineau's  voice  even  then  had  something  of  the  like 
reaching  power.  Visitors  in  Dublin  had  listened  to  his 
preaching ;  visitors  from  Dublin  had  told  of  the  new  man 
that  had  come.  Very  soon  after  his  resignation  in  Dublin 
he  was  invited  to  become  the  colleague  of  Rev.  John 
Grundy,  who  was  settled  over  the  Paradise  Street  Chapel 
in  Liverpool.  Charles  Wicksteed,  writing  in  1877,  re- 
membered how  "  the  circular  staircase  of  the  somewhat 
conspicuous  pulpit  was  quietly  ascended  by  a  tall  young 
man,  thin,  but  of  muscular  frame,  with  dark  hair,  pale  but 
not  delicate  complexion,  a  countenance  full  in  the  repose 
of  thought,  and  in  animation  of  intelligence  and  enthu- 
siasm, features  belonging  to  no  regular  type  or  order  of 
beauty,  yet  leaving  the  impression  of  a  very  high  kind  of 
beauty,  and  a  voice  so  sweet  and  clear  and  strong  with- 
out being  in  the  least  loud,  that  it  conveyed  all  the  inspira- 
tion of  music  without  any  of  its  art  or  intention."  He 
also  tells  us  that  "  when  this  young  man  with  the  back- 
ground of  his  honour  and  his  courage  rose  to  speak  of  the 


MINISTRY  IN   LIVERPOOL  SI 

inspiration  that  was  not  of  the  letter  but  of  the  soul,  and 
[for  that  time  of  clay]  boldly  distinguished  between  the 
inspiration  of  the  Old  Testament  books  and  the  Old  Testa- 
ment heroes,  he  completed  the  conquest  of  his  hearers." 

He  had  exchanged  the  generous  income  of  Dublin  for 
a  salary  scarce  equal  to  his  needs,  and  he  took  pupils 
to  eke  out  a  maintenance.  About  this  time  he  began  to 
exercise  his  hand  as  a  reviewer.  In  1833  he  contributed 
to  the  Monthly  Repository  an  article  on  yoseph  Priestley, 
which  very  properly  leads  in  the  first  volume  of  Essays, 
Reviews,  and  Addresses.  In  1835  he  appeared  in  The 
Christian  Reformer  with  an  essay  on  Bentham's  Deontology, 
to  which  in  his  collected  works  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  he 
gave  no  place.  Not  only  is  it  a  very  able  paper,  but  it 
has  a  biographical  interest.  In  those  days  he  followed 
with  Mill  and  Bentham,  and  so  championed  the  doctrines 
of  Necessity  and  Utility.  This  article  was  a  proclamation 
of  Utilitarianism.  We  read  it  now  with  vivid  memory  of 
his  later  teaching,  and  see  how  completely  were  the  ethical 
doctrines  of  his  school  lived  through  and  abandoned  in  the 
mumps-and-measles  period  of  his  intellectual  manhood. 

In  1835  Mr.  Grundy  died,  and  Mr.  Martineau  became 
sole  pastor.  It  can  hardly  be  said  that  the  change  added 
to  his  labors,  which  were  always  to  the  utmost.  He  con- 
tinued to  take  pupils ;  teaching  was  not  only  a  source 
of  income  but  a  congenial  occupation.  He  took  great 
interest  in  the  religious  education  of  the  young,  and  con- 
ducted them  through  long  courses  of  Biblical  instruction. 
At  one  time  he  gave  a  nine  months'  course  of  weekly 
lectures  on  the  Eucharist,  its  history,  its  doctrines,  its 
forms.  This  was  very  appropriately  followed  by  a  "  self- 
dedication  service  "  preparatory  to  the  next  communion. 
He  bore  an  active  part  in  more  general  outside  work, 
especially  that  of  an  educational  character.  In  1833  he 
delivered  a  course  of  ten  lectures  on  Chemistry  before  the 


52  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

Mechanics'  Institution  in  Liverpool,  of  which  the  syllabus 
is  still  to  be  seen,  A  few  years  later  his  sister  Rachel 
came  to  Liverpool  and  opened  a  girls'  boarding-school ; 
and  for  ten  years  Mr.  Martineau  aided  her  by  giving 
instruction  in  some  of  her  classes.  He  was  much  in 
demand  on  public  occasions, —  a  speech  here,  an  address 
there,  and  all  those  multifarious  services  w^iich  are  likely 
to  be  asked  of  an  intelligent,  an  interesting,  and  a  willing 
man. 

New  domestic  experiences  were  before  him.  In  1833  a 
daughter,  Mary  Ellen,  was  born  to  him.  Two  years  later 
another  son,  Herbert,-^  —  "  born  for  the  future,  to  the  future 
lost,"  —  came  to  gladden  him.  Three  other  children  were 
yet  to  enrich  him :  Gertrude,  now  an  artist,  Basil,  a  Lon- 
don solicitor,  and  Edith,  his  latest  born,  also  an  artist. 
Upon  Mary  Ellen,  with  Gertrude  and  Edith,  devolved  in 
his  later  years  the  care  of  his  home,  —  in  his  old  age,  of 
himself. 

In  1836  appeared  his  first  original  book.  The  Rationale  of 
Religions  Inquiry,  a  thin  volume,  a  little  larger  than  Emer- 
son's Nature,  and,  like  that,  a  proclamation  of  original  power. 
It  had  done  service  as  a  course  of  six  lectures,  discussing 
various  aspects  of  Christian  thought,  and  cogently  plead- 
ing for  Rationalism  against  Orthodoxy.  It  was  written 
in  a  style  possibly  less  winning  than  that  of  later  years, 
but  concise,  strong,  earnest,  elevated.  It  was  character- 
ized by  great  polemical  dexterity,  but  also  by  a  fearless  and 
invincible  candor.  What  could  be  fairer  or  nobler  than 
this  testimonial  to  the  Roman  Catholic  church,  at  whose 

1  He  died  at  ten  years  of  age.     On  his  headstone  is  this  touching  epitaph  : 

"  O  Life  too  fair !   Upon  thy  brow 
We  see  the  light  where  thou  art  now. 
O  Death  too  sad  1    In  thy  deep  shade 
All  but  our  sorrow  seemed  to  fade. 
O  Heaven  too  rich  !    not  long  detain 
Thine  exiles  from  the  sight  again." 


MINISTRY   IN   LIVERPOOL  53 

dogma  of  Infallibility  he  is  about  to  deal  a  trenchant 
blow?  "Long  and  far  was  this  Church  the  sole  vehicle 
of  Christianity,  that  bare  it  on  over  the  storms  of  ages,  and 
sheltered  it  amid  the  clash  of  nations.  It  evangelized  the 
philosophy  of  the  East,  and  gave  some  sobriety  to  its 
wild  and  voluptuous  dreams.  It  received  into  its  bosom 
the  savage  conquerors  of  the  North,  and  nursed  them 
successively  out  of  utter  barbarism.  It  stood  by  the 
desert  fountain,  from  which  all  modern  history  flows,  and 
dropped  into  it  the  sweetening  branch  of  Christian  truth 
and  peace.  It  presided  at  the  birth  of  art,  and  liberally 
gave  its  traditions  into  the  young  hands  of  Colour  and 
Design.  Traces  of  its  labours,  and  of  its  versatile  power 
over  the  human  mind,  are  scattered  throughout  the  globe. 
It  has  consecrated  the  memory  of  the  lost  cities  of  Africa, 
and  given  to  Carthage  a  Christian,  as  well  as  a  classic, 
renown.  If  in  Italy  and  Spain,  it  has  dictated  the  decrees 
of  tyranny,  the  mountains  of  Switzerland  have  heard  its 
vespers  mingling  with  the  cry  of  liberty,  and  its  requiem 
sung  over  patriot  graves.  The  convulsions  of  Asiatic 
history  have  failed  to  overthrow  it;  on  the  heights  of 
Lebanon,  on  the  plains  of  Armenia,  in  the  provinces  of 
China,  either  in  the  seclusion  of  the  convent,  or  the  stir 
of  population,  the  names  of  Jesus  and  of  Mary  still  ascend. 
It  is  not  difficult  to  understand  the  enthusiasm  which  this 
ancient  and  picturesque  religion  kindles  in  its  disciples. 
To  the  poor  peasant  who  knows  no  other  dignity  it  must 
be  a  proud  thing  to  feel  himself  a  member  of  a  vast 
community,  that  spreads  from  Andes  to  the  Indus ;  that 
has  bid  defiance  to  the  vicissitudes  of  fifteen  centuries, 
and  adorned  itself  with  the  genius  and  virtues  of  them 
all ;  that  beheld  the  transition  from  ancient  to  modern 
civilization,  and  itself  forms  the  connecting  link  between 
the  old  world  in  Europe  and  the  new;  the  missionary  of 
the  nations,  the  associate  of  history,  the  patron  of  art,  the 


54  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

vanquisher  of  the  sword."  ^  What  should  we  say,  were  we 
to  meet  the  Hke  testimonial  to  Protestantism  from  a  Wise- 
man or  Capel? 

The  book  won  immediate  recognition,  and  in  sixteen 
years  it  reached  a  fourth  edition.  Among  our  older 
liberal  divines  there  is  vivid  recollection  of  the  bright  day 
when  it  first  shone  upon  them.  It  treated  familiar  themes, 
yet  with  the  freshness  of  original  thought,  and  with  some- 
thing of  prophetic  boldness.  It,  indeed,  was  quite  in 
advance  of  the  time;  and  there  are  perhaps  to-day  few 
books  that  should  do  better  service  in  guiding  the  groping 
intellect  from  the  old  faith  to  the  new. 

The  purpose  of  the  book  is  to  exhibit  the  rational 
method  by  which  he  would  deal  with  the  problems  of 
religion.  Imagination  has  its  place  and  value ;  but  "  how- 
ever much  imagination  there  may  be  in  our  belief,  there 
must  at  least  be  soTne  logic."  ^  Say  what  we  will  of  Author- 
ity, on  the  throne  of  final  judgment  we  meet  Reason.  We 
plead  the  probability  of  an  inspired  Authority;  he  an- 
swers :  "  It  cannot  lead  me  to  renounce  a  tenet  which  is 
equally  probable  ;  and  if  the  evidence  against  any  doctrine 
appears  greater  than  that  for  the  Authority  which  recom- 
mends it,  it  has  no  conceivable  claim  to  my  belief.  A 
divine  right,  therefore,  to  dictate  a  perfectly  unreasonable 
faith  cannot  exist."  ^  We  are  told  that  belief  should  sub- 
mit; he  answers:  "Belief  cannot  submit;  belief  is  an  act  of 
the  understanding,  submission  an  act  of  the  will;  belief  is 
perfectly  involuntary,  and  is  determined  by  evidence ;  sub- 
mission perfectly  voluntary,  and  determined  by  motives."  * 
There  is  but  one  way  in  which  a  renunciation  of  belief  can 
be  won  from  me,  and  that  is  by  showing  me  its  falsity.  If 
you  "wish  me  to  relinquish  a  credible  doctrine,  the  nature 
which  God  has  given  me  leaves  you  but  one  method :  you 

'  pp.  19-20.  "p.  21,  3d  edition. 

3  pp.  26-27.  ^  p.  25. 


MINISTRY  IN   LIVERPOOL  55 

must  present  me  something  contradictory  to  it  which  is 
more  credible."  ^  He  furthers  his  argument  by  exposing 
in  the  ordinary  Christian  apologist  a  prevalent  and  pal- 
pable inconsistency:  "When  a  Christian  advocate  wishes 
to  prove  the  divinity  of  his  religion,  he  does  not  content 
himself  with  the  external  proofs,  but  proceeds  to  make 
reference  to  the  doctrine  so  worthy  of  God,  the  morality 
so  pure  and  sanctifying,  the  views  of  human  nature  so  just 
and  elevated,  the  hopes  of  futurity  so  rational  and  fitted 
to  our  nature,  the  demeanour  of  Christ  so  majestic  and 
yet  so  tender.  In  this  he  does  perfectly  right;  and  the 
argument  is  to  my  mind  decisive.  But  surely  he  here 
assumes  that  human  understanding  is  capable  of  perceiv- 
ing the  worth  and  tendency  of  Christian  doctrine,  the 
adaptation  to  our  wants  of  Christian  hopes,  the  dignity 
and  excellence  of  Christian  virtue.  And  when  an  oppo- 
nent, following  the  same  course,  says,  here  is  a  notion 
absurd  and  unreasonable,  —  here  a  sentiment  that  tends 
to  evil,  —  here  a  representation  of  God  which  violates  the 
analogies  of  nature,  with  what  justice  can  the  Christian 
turn  round  and  declaim  against  the  weakness  and  pre- 
sumption of  human  reason  and  the  depraved  judgments 
of  the  human  heart?  "^ 

The  denial  of  this  principle  leads  to  manifold  confusion 
and  absurdity.  The  free  and  natural  impression  of  the 
Gospels  cannot  be  indulged;  for  the  faculty  by  which 
alone  it  can  be  realized  is  superseded  and  discredited. 
You  could  turn  to  them  as  the  works  of  men,  earnest, 
truthful,  making  the  best  report  possible  of  things  they 
saw,  of  events  in  which  they  participated,  yet  ignorant 
from  the  prevailing  ignorance  of  their  day, —  in  their 
ethics,  in  their  philosophy,  erring  as  other  mortals  err; 
but  you  are  told  that  these  men  did  not  write  as  other 
men,  that  they  were  the  passive  agents  of  a  higher  Reason. 

^  P-  25-  2  p.  67. 


56  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

To  test  their  work  by  human  reason,  therefore,  is  imperti- 
nent and  profane.  These  writings  are  to  be  "  approached 
with  divine  awe,"  not  "  embraced  with  human  sympathy." 
Understand  and  believe,  —  these  are  the  only  functions 
allowed  us ;  and  whatsoever  is  more  than  this  cometh  of 
presumption  in  dealing  with  writings  from  a  source  so 
high.  "  Interpret  a  portion  of  history,  and  you  have  a 
narrative  perfect  from  the  memory  of  God,"  respecting 
which  it,  of  course,  were  blasphemy  to  raise  question;  — 
"  a  piece  of  argument,  and  you  have  the  reasoning  of  the 
Infinite  intellect;  — an  expression  of  expectation,  and  you 
have  a  prediction  from  the  prescience  of  the  Most  High."  ^ 
In  consistency  with  such  view  reason  can  but  dumbly 
disown  its  function,  and  any  natural  relation  of  mind  and 
Gospels  is  impossible.  "  To  praise  their  simplicity,  to 
admire  their  beauty,  to  judge  of  their  moral  excellence, 
to  point  out  the  ingenuity  and  adroitness  of  their  argu- 
ments, is  as  presumptuous  and  absurd  as  to  question  their 
accuracy,  and  discover  in  them  traces  of  erroneous  thought. 
What  kind  of  critics  are  we  of  the  ability  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  for  narration,  for  precept,  or  for  the  exercise  of 
logical  art?  "  ^ 

These  passages  show  the  trend  and  temper  of  a  volume 
that  stimulated  much  thought  and  awoke  some  raptures 
sixty  years  ago,  and  which  still  has  magnetism  in  its 
pages. 

In  the  preface  to  the  third  edition  is  a  passage  over 
which  the  reader  should  be  indulged  a  smile :  "  Soon 
after  the  publication  of  the  first  edition  of  this  book,  the 
Author  was  asked  by  a  friend,  whether  he  thought  that  the 
opinions  which  characterized  the  volume  could  be  regarded 
as  '  7dtimate!  As  no  one  can  foresee  the  changes  of  his 
own  mind,  he  answered  with  an  affirmative."  He  had 
found  a  bivouac  for  the  night,  and  thought  to  build  his 


1 


p.  II.  2  p.  II. 


MINISTRY   IN   LIVERPOOL  57 

home  and  his  temple  there.  Ultimate  opinions  are  for 
stationary  intellects.  The  Martineau  of  this  volume  and 
the  Martineau  we  know  seem  in  comparison  like  the  little 
lake  in  the  mountain  and  the  lower  Mississippi  flooded  with 
a  thousand  streams  and  rolling  ever  and  ever  gulfward. 

In  1839  an  event  took  place  which  brought  Mr.  Marti- 
neau into  a  good  deal  of  prominence.  It  was  the  Liverpool 
Controversy,  whereof  the  echoes  have  not  wholly  died 
away.  He  had  then  two  comrades  in  Liverpool, — John 
Hamilton  Thorn,  a  hoary  octogenarian  recently  gathered 
to  his  fathers,  then  thirty-three  years  of  age,  winning  in 
spirit  and  in  manner,  with  mind  well  stored  and  disciplined, 
no  Titan  of  unruly  might,  and  likewise  no  Adonis  of  effem- 
inate grace ;  and  Henry  Giles,  long  since  gone  over  to 
the  silent  majority,  then  in  the  vigor  of  his  manhood,  an 
intense  believer,  and,  though  by  temperament  literary 
rather  than  polemical,  a  champion  not  lightly  to  be  en- 
countered. All  were  then  engaged  in  pulpit  and  pastoral 
work ;  Mr.  Thom  was  likewise  editor  of  the  Christian 
Teacher;  and  Mr.  Martineau  was  not  only  heavily  bur- 
dened with  outside  teaching,  but  in  the  quiet  of  his  library 
was  engaged  in  work  whereof  anon  we  shall  see  the  fruits. 

In  the  midst  of  such  cares  they  threw  themselves  into  a 
contest  which  alone  should  have  taxed  the  strength  of  men 
who  are  accounted  strong.  On  the  twenty-first  of  January 
there  appeared  in  print  a  circular  invitation  "  To  all  who 
call  themselves  Unitarians  in  the  town  and  neighbourhood 
of  Liverpool "  to  attend  a  course  of  lectures  in  which  the 
errors  of  Unitarianism  were  to  be  exposed.  The  tone  of 
the  missive  was  popish ;  and  it  abounded  in  phrases  in 
which  Orthodox  dislike  of  Unitarianism  was  plainly  rather 
than  delicately  shown.  The  motive  of  the  enterprise  was 
set  forth  as  "our  solemn  impression  of  the  value  of  souls, 
and  of  the  peril  to  which  the  false  philosophy  of  Unitarian- 
ism exposes  them."     They  were  told  that  Unitarians  were 


58  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

sunk  in  the  most  blasphemous  and  deadly  error,  and 
wholly  unworthy  of  being  considered  Christians  in  any 
proper  sense  of  the  word.  The  spirit  of  the  invitation,  they 
were  assured,  was  that  of "  the  tenderest  charity,  of  the 
purest  love,  of  the  most  affectionate  sympathy  with  those 
in  the  extreme  of  peril,  and  that  an  eternal  peril !'  "  Shall 
he  who,  unwittingly,  totters  blindfold  on  the  edge  of  a 
precipice,  deem  it  a  rude  or  an  uncharitable  violence  which 
would  snatch  him  with  a  strong  and  a  venturous  hand,  or 
even  it  may  be  with  a  painful  grasp,  from  the  fearful  ruin 
over  which  he  impends  ?  "  The  missive  closed  with  the 
announcement  of  the  intention  of  the  reverend  gentlemen 
undertaking  this  work,  to  come  together,  on  the  day  pre- 
ceding its  commencement,  "  for  the  purpose  of  solemn 
humiliation  before  God,  and  earnest  prayer  for  the  blessing 
of  our  Heavenly  Father."  It  was  signed  by  Fielding  Ould, 
minister  of  Christ  Church.  At  the  same  time  there  was 
published  a  syllabus  of  a  course  of  lectures,  thirteen  in 
number,  to  be  given  by  thirteen  clergymen  of  the  Church 
of  England.  The  subjects  were  to  traverse  the  entire  line 
of  difference  between  Unitarian  and  Orthodox  faith. 

Whether  or  not  these  worthy  gentlemen  expected  to 
carry  on  this  enterprise  and  receive  no  challenge,  we  do 
not  know.  That  they  were  hardly  looking  for  the  challenge 
they  received  seems  probable ;  that  they  did  not  duly  esti- 
mate the  antagonists  they  were  to  encounter  seems  certain. 
With  good  courage  one  may  poach  his  neighbor's  preserves 
when  they  are  guarded  by  a  docile  mastiff  that  will  only 
bark,  or  at  worst  snarl  at  the  intruder ;  but  if  there  be  an 
armed  and  watchful  guard  there,  it  is  another  matter.  The 
above  missive  was  promptly  answered  in  polished  but 
sometimes  pungent  phrases,  and  the  correspondence  that 
followed  should  beguile  the  dullest  hour. 

The  answerers  expressed  great  interest  in  the  enterprise; 
and,  while  doubting  whether  a  public  audience  was  the 


MINISTRY   IN   LIVERPOOL  59 

best  tribunal  before  which  to  try  questions  so  grave,  yet 
felt  it  their  duty  to  co-operate,  that  from  a  comparison  of 
views  no  merely  one-sided  impression  might  be  imparted. 
"  Deeply  aware,"  said  they,  "  of  our  human  liability  to  form 
and  to  convey  false  impressions  of  views  and  systems  from 
which  we  dissent,  we  shall  be  anxious  to  pay  a  calm  and 
respectful  attention  to  your  defence  of  the  doctrines  of  your 
church.  We  will  give  notice  of  your  lectures,  as  they  suc- 
ceed each  other,  to  our  congregations,  and  exhort  them  to 
hear  you  in  the  spirit  of  Christian  justice  and  affection ; 
presuming  that,  in  a  like  spirit,  you  will  recommend  your 
hearers  to  listen  to  such  reply  as  we  may  think  it  right  to 
offer.  We  are  not  conscious  of  any  fear,  any  interest,  any 
attachment  to  system,  which  should  interfere  with  the  sin- 
cere fulfilment  of  oicr  part  in  such  an  understanding;  and, 
for  the  performance  oi yours,  we  rely  on  your  avowed  zeal 
for  that  Protestantism  which  boldly  confides  the  interpreta- 
tion of  Scripture  to  individual  judgment,  and  to  that  sense 
of  justice  which,  in  Christian  minds,  is  the  fruit  of  cultiva- 
tion and  sound  knowledge."  Then  followed  the  announce- 
ment, that  to  the  lectures  given  on  the  Orthodox  side  there 
would  each  week  be  given  a  lecture  in  reply.  That  the 
lectures  might  meet  the  larger  audience,  they  proposed 
that  abstracts  of  them  be  printed  side  by  side  in  some 
paper.  Or,  if  this  arrangement  did  not  please,  they  would 
undertake  a  newspaper  discussion  of  the  points  at  issue. 

Reviewing  other  parts  of  the  missive,  they  use  language 
which,  though  most  polite  in  itself,  we  fear  must  have 
been  the  opposite  of  soothing  to  Orthodox  sensibilities : 
"You  ask  us,  reverend  sir,  whether  it  is  not  a  '  sweet  and 
pleasant  thing,'  to  '  tell  and  hear  together  of  the  great 
things  which  God  has  done  for  our  souls.'  Doubtless, 
there  are  conditions  under  which  such  communion  may  be 
most  '  sweet  and  pleasant ; '  .  .  .  but  such  conference  is  not 
'  sweet  and  pleasant '  where,  fallibility  being  confessed  on 


60  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

one  side,  infallibility  is  assumed  on  the  other;  where  one 
has  nothing  to  learn  and  everything  to  teach;  where  the 
arguments  of  an  equal  are  propounded  as  a  message  of 
inspiration ;  where  presumed  error  is  treated  as  unpardon- 
able guilt,  and  on  the  fruits  of  laborious  and  truth-loving 
inquiry,  terms  of  reprobation  and  menaces  of  everlasting 
perdition  are  unscrupulously  poured," 

Referring  to  the  announced  meeting  for  humiliation  and 
prayer,  the  letter  reads :  "  Permit  us  to  say,  that  we  could 
join  you  in  that  day's  prayer,  if,  instead  of  assuming 
before  God  what  doctrines  his  Spirit  should  enforce,  you 
would,  with  us,  implore  him  to  have  pity  on  the  ignorance 
of  us  all :  to  take  us  all  by  the  hand  and  lead  us  into  the 
truth  and  love,  though  it  should  be  by  ways  most  heret- 
ical and  strange ;  to  wrest  us  from  the  dearest  reliances 
and  most  assured  convictions  of  our  hearts,  if  they  hinder 
our  approach  to  his  great  realities.  A  blessed  day  would 
that  be  for  the  peace,  brotherhood,  and  piety  of  this  Chris- 
tian community,  if  the  '  humiliation '  would  lead  to  a  rec- 
ognition of  Christian  equality,  and  the  'prayer'  to  the 
recognition  of  that  spiritual  God  whose  love  is  moral  in 
its  character,  spiritual,  not  doctrinal  in  its  conditions,  and 
who  accepts  from  all  his  children  the  spirit  and  the  truth 
of  worship." 

Thus  in  most  polished  phrases  was  the  issue  accepted, 
but  in  a  temper  which  showed  a  more  than  willingness  to 
wield  the  sword  of  the  spirit,  —  in  an  emergency,  to  ex- 
change it  for  a  more  carnal  weapon. 

The  hope  of  fair  and  candid  comparison  of  opinion,  if 
such  was  entertained,  Mr.  Quid's  reply  did  not  encourage. 
The  plan  of  publishing  together  abstracts  of  lectures  he 
would  not  agree  to ;  a  newspaper  discussion  he  did  not 
approve.  To  the  question  whether  he  would  recommend 
his  congregation  to  hear  the  Unitarian  lectures,  he  replied 
unequivocally  that  he  would  not.     "  Were  I  to  consent  to 


MINISTRY   IN   LIVERPOOL  6l 

this  proposal,"  said  he,  "  I  should  thereby  admit  that 
we  stood  on  terms  of  a  religious  equality,  which  is, 
in  limine,  denied.  As  men,  citizens,  and  subjects,  we  are 
doubtless  equal,  and  will  also  stand  on  a  footing  of  equality 
before  the  bar  of  final  judgment.  I  therefore  use  the  term 
'  religious  equality^  in  order  to  convey  to  you  the  distinc- 
tion between  our  relative  position  as  members  of  the  com- 
munity and  as  religionists.  Being  unable  ...  to  recognize 
you  as  Christians,  I  cannot  consent  to  meet  you  in  a  way 
which  would  imply  that  we  occupy  the  same  religious 
level."  "  To  you,"  he  adds,  "  there  will  be  no  sacrifice 
of  principle  or  compromise  of  feeling,  in  entering  our 
churches ;  to  ics  there  would  be  such  surrender  of  both,  in 
entering  yours,  as  would  peremptorily  prohibit  any  such 
engagement."  He  closed  his  letter  by  congratulating  his 
correspondents  on  their  expressed  purpose  to  attend  the 
lectures  with  their  congregations,  to  hear  what  was  fatally 
false  in  their  system,  and  with  a  prayer  that  the  Great 
Head  of  the  Church  would  prosper  the  effort  about  to  be 
made  for  the  promotion  of  his  glory,  through  the  instruc- 
tion of  those  who  were  "  ignorant  and  out  of  the  way''  In 
applying  this  italicized  phrase  to  Mr.  Martineau  and  Mr. 
Thom,  Mr.  Ould  certainly  betrayed  a  want  of  the  sense  of 
humor,  the  best  office  of  which  is  often  to  save  us  from 
being  ridiculous. 

Whether  in  thrust  or  parry,  Mr.  Ould  was  a  bungling 
fencer  in  comparison  with  his  lithe  and  dexterous  antag- 
onists ;  and  the  reply  he  drew  from  them  was  his  humili- 
ating discomfiture  :  "  You  deny  our  religious  equality  with 
you.  Is  it  as  a  matter  of  opinion,  or  as  a  matter  of  certainty, 
that  such  equality  is  denied?  If  it  is  only  as  an  opinion, 
then  this  will  not  absolve  you  from  fair  and  equal  discus- 
sion on  the  grounds  of  such  opinion.  If  it  is  with  you  not 
an  opinion,  but  a  certainty,  then,  Sir,  this  is  Popery.  Popery 
we  can  understand,  —  we  know,  at  least,  what  it  is, —  but 


62  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

Protestantism  erecting  itself  into  Romish  infallibility,  yet 
still  claiming  to  be  Protestantism,  is  to  us  a  sad  and 
humiliating  spectacle,  showing  what  deep  roots  Roman 
Catholicism  has  in  the  weaker  parts  of  our  common 
nature." 

In  his  first  missive  Mr.  Ould  had  imputed  to  Unitarians, 
if  sound  theologians,  the  belief  that  their  Trinitarian 
neighbors  were  guilty  of  the  "  most  heinous  of  all  sins  — 
idolatry,"  —  a  belief  which,  of  course,  he  knew  they  did 
not  entertain,  but  which  it  served  the  purposes  of  his  argu- 
ment to  charge.  The  imputation  was  now  turned  upon 
him  with  a  significance  he  could  not  have  anticipated. 
"  In  reference  to  your  repugnance  to  enter  our  chapels  we 
say  no  more,  reserving  our  right  of  future  appeal  in  this 
matter  to  those  members  of  your  church  who  may  be 
unable  to  see  the  force  of  your  distinction  between  religious 
and  social  equality.  But  we  are  surprised  that  you  should 
conceive  it  so  easy  a  thing  for  us  to  enter  your  churches : 
and  should  suppose  it  '  no  sacrifice  of  principle  and  com- 
promise of  feeling'  in  us  to  unite  in  a  worship  which  you 
assure  us  must  constitute  in  our  eyes  '  the  most  heinous 
of  all  sins  —  Idolatry.'  EitJier  you  must  have  known  that 
we  did  not  consider  your  worship  an  idolatry,  or  have 
regarded  our  resort  to  it  a  most  guilty  '  compromise  of  feel- 
ing; '  to  which,  nevertheless,  you  give  us  a  solemn  invita- 
tion; adding  now,  on  our  compliance,  a  congratulation  no 
less  singular."  That  there  was  no  wincing  at  this  most 
palpable  thrust,  they  may  believe  who  can. 

Two  days  after  the  above  letter,  there  appeared  an  in- 
vitation "  To  the  Trinitarians  of  this  Town  and  Neigh- 
bourhood who  may  feel  interested  in  the  approaching 
Unitarian  Controversy,"  and  they  were  addressed  as 
"  Christian  Brethren."  It  recapitulated  the  correspond- 
ence, and  appealed  to  them  to  give  that  "  equal  audience  " 
which  their  clergymen    had    refused.      Three  days  later. 


MINISTRY   IN   LIVERPOOL  63 

there  appeared  another  address  "To  the  [so-called]  Uni- 
tarians of  Liverpool ;  "  in  which  Mr.  Ould  made  a  lame 
attempt  to  justify  his  attitude. 

The  next  move  was  from  Mr.  Ould,  in  the  offer  of  a 
platform  discussion,  which  was  promptly  declined,  extem- 
pore debate  before  a  miscellaneous  assembly  not  being 
considered  the  proper  mode  of  treating  themes  that  need 
the  most  critical  and  careful  statement.  To  this  Mr.  Ould 
made  hasty  reply  that  he  could  but  "  hope  a  secret  con- 
sciousness of  the  weakness "  of  their  cause  "  prompted 
their  determination ;  "  —  a  most  unfortunate  remark,  which 
his  keen  adversary  turned  upon  him :  "  Sir,  it  is  not  a 
little  mournful  to  find  a  Christian  Minister  expressing  the 
hope  that  other  men  are  hypocrites,  that  they  are  secretly 
conscious  of  the  weakness  of  the  cause  which  they  habitu- 
ally defend.  To  Jiope  that  we  secretly  know  our  errors, 
whilst  publicly  preaching  them  as  truth,  is  indeed  strange 
preference  of  faith  before  works." 

Meanwhile,  on  second  thought,  the  offer  of  a  newspaper 
discussion  was  accepted  in  a  letter  signed  by  Mr.  Ould  and 
two  of  his  brother  clergymen.  The  consideration  of  the 
preliminaries  to  this  led  to  some  statements  of  theological 
attitude  which  revealed  the  fact  that  on  the  Unitarian  side 
there  was  dissent  from  the  doctrine  of  plenary  inspiration, 
and  a  denial  that  even  miracles  were  a  guaranty  of  infal- 
libility. At  the  revelation  of  these  heresies  the  Orthodox 
party  withdrew  from  the  controversy.  "  While,  therefore," 
said  they,  "  we  shall  continue  to  use  all  lawful  methods  of 
argument  and  persuasion,  in  the  hope  of  being  useful  to 
those  who,  though  called  Unitarians,  are  not  so  entirely 
separated  from  the  common  humanity  as  you  seem  to  be, 
we  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that,  with  regard  \.o  your- 
selves as  individuals,  there  appears  to  be  a  more  insur- 
mountable obstacle  in  the  way  of  discussion  than  would  be 
offered  by  ignorance  of  one  another's  language;  because 


64  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

the  want  of  a  common  medium  of  language  could  be  sup- 
plied by  an  interpreter,  but  the  want  of  a  common  medium 
of  reason  cannot  be  supplied  at  all."  To  this  came  the 
sharp  rejoinder,  that  "  Theology  appears  in  this  instance  to 
have  borrowed  a  hint  from  the  '  laws  of  honour ;  '  and  as  in 
the  world  a  '  passage  at  arms  '  is  sometimes  evaded,  under 
the  pretence  that  the  antagonist  is  too  little  of  a  gc7itleman, 
so  in  the  church  a  polemical  collision  may  be  declined, 
because  the  opponent  is  too  little  of  a  believer !' 

The  last  letter  was  written  March  25,  but  some  seven 
weeks  earlier  than  this  the  pulpit  contest  had  to  be  girded 
for.  As  their  adversaries  had  done,  the  Unitarians  pub- 
lished a  syllabus  of  their  lectures,  thirteen  against  their 
thirteen.  Of  the  thirteen  subjects  Mr.  Martineau  took  five ; 
Mr.  Thom  and  Mr.  Giles  each  four.  When  we  bear  in 
mind  that  the  thirteen  chose  their  subjects,  each  according 
to  his  special  interest  or  strength,  and  that  the  three  had 
thus  their  subjects  practically  appointed  to  them,  the  odds 
seem  fairly  Thermopylaean.  Theological  sympathies  will 
incline  the  reader  to  one  side  or  the  other  independently 
of  any  consideration  of  weight  of  learning  or  cogency  of 
argument.  But  the  readers  are  surely  few  who  will  not 
say  that  if  the  odds  were  Thermopylaean  the  polemic 
victory  was  Spartan. 

On  Wednesday  evening  of  February  6,  Mr.  Ould  gave 
the  opening  lecture,  in  which  he  stormed  the  Unitarian  line 
with  plagiarized  thunder.^  The  crowd  that  gathered  was 
immense;  the  three  Unitarian  clergymen  found  it  difficult 
to  gain  admission  to  the  church.  A  pew  was  afterwards 
assigned  them,  from  their  occupancy  popularly  known  as 
the  "condemned  pew;  "  and  here,  under  the  fulminations 
of  the  pulpit  and  amid  the  responsive  aniens  of  the  faithful 

I  As  was  afterwards  conclusively  shown,  he  took  a  large  part  of  his 
lecture  from  Andrew  Fuller's  Calvinistic  aiid  Socinian  Systems  Examined 
end  Compared. 


MINISTRY   IN   LIVERPOOL  6$ 

about  them,  they  sat  out  every  lecture.  Mr.  Thorn  replied 
in  the  Paradise  Street  Church  on  the  evening  of  the  fol- 
lowing Tuesday,  and  the  crowd  was  not  less  great.  The 
Trinitarian  clergymen,  however,  true  to  their  word,  stayed 
away,  and  used  their  best  endeavors  to  keep  their  flocks 
away  also.  Through  thirteen  weeks  the  strife  continued. 
Liverpool  was  stirred  as  communities  rarely  are  by  con- 
flicts of  religious  opinion,  and  the  noise  of  the  fray  travelled 
far. 

If  there  was  hope,  however,  of  making  proselytes,  the 
result  was  disappointing.  Two  families  brought  over  to 
the  Unitarian  rank  were  the  sum  total  of  conversions. 

The  lectures  on  either  side  were  promptly  printed  in 
pamphlets  with  appropriate  prefaces  and  appendices,  and 
thus  sent  forth  to  enlighten  as  they  might.  At  the  close 
of  the  discussion  they  were  gathered  into  two  volumes, 
respectively  entitled  Ujiitarianism  Confuted  and  Unitari- 
anism  Defended ;  and  from  their  pages  he  who  cares  to 
read  them  now  can  judge  the  controversy. 

Unitarianism  Confuted  expresses  a  desire,  possibly  a 
belief,  but  hardly  a  fact.  It  may  confute  Unitarianism  wnth. 
those  to  whom  it  is  already  confuted ;  but  from  its  temper, 
method,  and  low  range  of  ability,  it  is  poorly  calculated  to 
confute  Unitarians. 

With  respect  to  temper,  the  plea  may  be  made  that  the 
standard  should  not  be  too  exacting ;  in  the  heat  of  con- 
troversy, as  in  the  grip  of  battle,  phraseology  will  not  be 
always  nice.  But  we  open  to  the  general  preface,  and  there 
read  that  Unitarians  are  "  men  wise  in  their  own  conceits 
and  fervent  idolaters  of  their  own  unhallowed  reason ;  " 
that  "  this  glorious  transcript  of  the  Divine  Mind  —  origi- 
nated in  the  counsels  of  Triune  Deity  from  all  eternity  — 
promulgated  to  fallen  man  in  the  shades  of  Paradise,"  they 
"  have  endeavored  and  are  daily  endeavoring  to  pull  down 
and   destroy ; "   that   "  the    existence  and  agency  of  the 

5 


66  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

Tempter,  as  Satan  is  emphatically  styled  by  way  of  bad 
eminence,  is  regarded  as  allegorical  and  visionary  by  men, 
unthinking  that  it  is  one  of  the  depths  of  Satan,  one  of  his 
most  subtle  devices,  to  make  them  deny  and  ridicule  the 
idea  of  his  existence,  that  he  may  thus  throw  a  dreaming 
and  deluded  world  off  its  guard  and  lead  it  captive  to  his 
will."  The  belief  of  Unitarians  is  described  in  Milton's 
picture  of  Death,  —  "If  form  it  may  be  called  that  form 
hath  none," — quoting,  or  rather  misquoting,  from  mem- 
ory most  likely.  Unitarian  polemic  is  alleged  to  be  char- 
acterized by  "  hardy  misquotations,"  "  inconsequential 
reasonings,"  "  the  perversion  of  obvious  meanings." 
"  Unitarians,"  we  are  told,  "  have  borne  some  such  pro- 
portion to  the  Christian  church,  as  monsters  bear  to  the 
species  of  which  they  are  the  unhappy  distortions."  It 
informs  us  that  "  unwearied  hostility  is  waged  by  Unitarians 
against  the  mind  of  God."  In  closing  it  quotes  from  the 
Collect  for  Good  Friday,  "  Have  mercy  upon  all  Jews, 
Turks,  Infidels  and  Heretics."  All  this  within  the  scope 
of  a  brief  preface.  In  the  pages  that  follow,  the  like 
expressions  are  scattered  with  less  plentiful  profusion,  but 
they  are  there ;  and  they  give  the  volume  a  tone  of  which 
the  nobler  passages  do  not  neutralize  the  impression  ;  they 
are  of  the  bitterness  that  alienates,  not  the  charity  that 
wins. 

The  method  of  argumentation,  too,  considered  with 
reference  to  Unitarians,  is  singularly  mistaken.  It  is  a 
continuous  appeal  to  authority,  —  the  decretals  of  church, 
texts  of  Scripture,  —  precisely  what  Unitarians  had  lived 
through,  wearied  of,  and  cast  aside.  Unitarians  were  then 
somewhat  nearer  to  Orthodox  standards  than  now;  but 
then,  as  now,  it  was  needful  to  show  them,  not  what  Moses 
and  Athanasius  said,  but  what  Reason  and  Conscience  say. 
The  Unitarian  may  not  be  wiser  than  other  men,  he  may 
be  less  wise ;  but  in  general  he  has  a  characteristic  way  of 


MINISTRY   IN   LIVERPOOL  6/ 

seeing  things,  and  by  this  way  you  must  approach  him  if 
you  will  win  him.  Here  these  advocates  made  a  capital 
mistake ;  original  Greek  they  flung  at  him ;  proof  texts 
they  showered  upon  him ;  creeds  were  quoted  and  ex- 
plained to  him ;  but  the  presentation  of  the  Orthodox 
view  in  such  manner  as  to  show  that  it  answered  to  the 
deepest  and  truest  within  him  was  not  offered  him ;  and  so 
failure  was  decreed  from  the  beginning. 

Judged  by  the  common,  intellectual  standard,  too,  the 
book,  as  a  whole,  seems  hardly  worthy  the  occasion  that 
called  it  forth.  Some  of  the  lectures  were  apparently  given 
off-hand ;  and,  among  their  marked  characteristics,  just 
discrimination  and  careful  scholarship  are  not  conspicuous. 
The  lecturers  spoke  as  to  those  who  would  make  no  reply, 
and  as  if  in  forgetfulness  or  disdain  of  the  fact,  that  in  their 
audience  sat  three  at  least  who  were  following  them  into 
whatever  highways  or  byways  of  learning ;  who  would  ex- 
pose the  fallacies  of  their  ungirt  logic,  and  call  their  care- 
less words  into  judgment.  Even  in  the  better  portions  of 
the  volume,  the  occasion  seems  hardly  met.  Among  the 
thirteen  were  men  of  academic  honors,  who  in  scholarly 
and  thoughtful  speech  declared  their  convictions ;  but  there 
was  not  at  that  day  a  learned  prelate  in  all  England  who 
would  not  have  added  to  his  fame  by  a  polemic  victory 
over  Martineau  and  Thorn ;  indeed  there  were  very  few 
who  could  have  risked  their  fame  in  such  an  encounter. 
All  along  the  line  the  contest  seems  unequal,  —  the  squires 
of  the  church  doing  battle  where  her  best  trained  and  most 
valorous  knights  were  demanded.  This  is  only  to  be  re- 
gretted ;  for  in  polemic  contests  truth  prospers  from  the 
equal  match,  and  even  party  faith  is  too  cheaply  vindicated 
where  the  combat  is  one-sided. 

If  this  seems  severe  judgment,  it  may  be  shown  that  the 
studious  public  have  judged  the  volume  yet  more  severely. 
The  book  has  passed  out  of  sight,  is  unread  and  unhonored. 


68  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

Yet  does  it  contain  pages  of  earnest  thought  and  brave 
sincerity,  and  incidental  discussions  not  hghtly  to  be 
pondered. 

In  Unitarianism  Defended  we  enter  another  atmosphere. 
Occasionally  the  old  Adam  gets  in  a  word,  and  there  are 
certainly  pages  that  would  wear  a  more  dignified  look  after 
a  considerable  excision.  Yet  in  its  prevailing  tone  the 
book  is  perhaps  as  near  to  the  model  of  a  polemic  as  ever 
issued  from  a  debate  so  earnest.  With  especial  emphasis 
may  this  be  said  of  the  part  borne  by  Mr.  Martineau.  In 
the  letters  from  which  we  have  quoted,  the  evidence  is 
plain  enough  that  his  hand  held  the  pen  that  wrote  them ; 
and  under  those  polished  sentences  there  lurks  at  times  a 
tone  of  irony  that  may  suggest  Izaak  Walton's  instruction 
for  the  use  of  the  frog:  "  Put  your  hook  ,  ,  .  through  his 
mouth  and  out  at  his  gills ;  and  in  so  doing  use  him  as 
though  you  loved  him."  In  his  lectures,  however,  he  lifts 
himself  into  the  atmosphere  of  knowledge  and  of  thought, 
where  the  loftiest  aim  and  the  noblest  feeling  rule  him. 
Only  once  does  he  make  a  personal  reply,  and  that  reply 
from  its  uniqueness  should  be  quoted.  A  venerable  and 
much  esteemed  but  over-earnest  lecturer  had  indulged  in 
something  like  a  tirade  against  him,  in  answer  to  which 
he  may  have  read :  "  As  to  that  excellent  man  who,  on 
Wednesday  last,  treated  in  this  way  our  most  cherished  con- 
victions and  most  innocent  actions,  I  have  said  nothing  in 
reply  to  his  accusations  ;  for  I  well  know  them  to  have  failed 
in  benevolence,  only  from  excess  of  mistaken  piety.  Had  he 
a  little  more  power  of  imagination,  to  put  himself  into  the 
feelings  and  ideas  of  others,  doubtless  he  would  understand 
both  his  Bible  and  his  fellow-disciples  better  than  he  does. 
Meanwhile,  I  would  not  stir,  with  the  breath  of  disrespect, 
one  of  his  gray  hairs ;  or  by  any  severity  of  expostulation 
disturb  the  peace  of  an  old  age,  so  affectionate  and  good 
as  his.     He  and  we  must  erelong  pass  to  a  world  where 


MINISTRY   IN   LIVERPOOL  69 

the  film  will  fall  from  the  eye  of  error,  and  we  shall  know, 
even  as  we  are  known." 

In  the  discussion  of  the  various  problems  the  Unitarians 
drew  prevailingly  from  three  sources,  —  Nature,  the  Moral 
Consciousness,  and  the  Bible.  From  their  use  of  the  Bible 
one  would  hardly  suspect  that  they  read  it  on  their  knees, 
as  was  once  the  practice  of  a  famous  theologian ;  yet  it  is 
clear  that  they  held  it  up  to  the  light  in  studious  and  rev- 
erent scrutiny  of  its  page.  To  them  it  was  a  Revelation 
from  God,  —  no  less  a  Revelation  because  given  through 
men  from  whom  it  received  a  human  element.  But  if  the 
Bible  is  a  Revelation,  Nature  is  that  too,  and  Conscience  like- 
wise, when  its  oracle  is  distinctly  heard.  These  three  reve- 
lations, ahke  from  God,  cannot  contradict,  but  must  rather 
supplement  and  explain  one  another,  —  their  concurrent 
testimony  to  any  doctrine,  our  certitude  of  its  truth,  the 
clear  remonstrance  of  any  one,  a  not-to-be-doubted  proof 
that  we  have  misconceived  the  other  two.  Hence  a  large- 
ness in  their  reasonings  and  a  strength  in  their  conclusions, 
quite  in  contrast  with  those  of  their  adversaries,  who  of 
these  grounds  of  argument  knew  only  one,  and  from  this 
limitation  were  denied  the  essential  condition  of  knowing 
even  that.  In  one  of  Mr.  Martineau's  most  earnest  passages 
he  protests  against  the  "  infidel  rejection "  of  Nature's 
ancient  oracle.  It  was  something  to  him  well-nigh  incred- 
ible, the  scepticism  that  denied  two  Words  of  God  to  the 
misunderstanding  and  even  perversion  of  a  third.  And 
those  who  pronounce  against  Unitarianism  as  a  negative 
faith  he  asks  to  justify  the  positive  character  of  a  system 
that  "  disbelieves  reason,  distrusts  the  moral  sense,  dislikes 
science,  discredits  nature." 

Not  only  were  these  defenders  strong  men ;  it  is  evident 
that  of  their  strength  they  were  not  sparing.  They  did 
not  aim  merely  to  repulse  assaulting  arguments,  but  to  give 
their  faith  the  noblest  presentation.     Their  themes  were 


70  JxVMES   MARTINEAU 

worn  and  hackneyed,  yet  they  seized  upon  them  as  though 
they  had  never  before  been  treated ;   and  by  the  vigor  of 
their  thought  and  their  ample  learning  they  gave  them  a 
statement  remarkable  for  nothing  more  than  its  freshness. 
In  the  main,  they  answered  their  opponents,  not  by  re- 
joinder, but  by  implication,  building  a  structure  of  doc- 
trine   over   against   which    the    Orthodox  doctrines  seem 
incredible.     Thus    peculiarly  it   was  with  Mr.  Martineau. 
Three  of  his  lectures  were  reprinted  in  America,  in  Studies 
of  Christianity ;  and  of  the  many  who  have  read  and  ad- 
mired them,  probably  not  one  to  whom  the  fact  was  not 
told  has  ever  suspected  that  they  came  out  of  the  hottest 
of  controversies.     They  suggest  the  scholar  and   thinker 
coming  from  his  study  with  his  most  careful,  albeit  his  most 
fervid  word.     He  discredits  the  Orthodox  doctrines  some- 
what as  Newton  in  his  Principia  discredits  the  mediaeval 
astronomy,  which,  without  noticing,  he  annihilates.     Surely 
on  the  lines  which  he  traversed  no  one  who  heard  him  or 
who  read  him  needed  afterwards  to  ask  the  positive  atti- 
tude of  the  Unitarian  mind.     The  only  qualification  to  this 
statement  might  be  in  the  fact  that  his  presentations  were 
somewhat  in  advance  of  the  Unitarianism  of  the  time.     In- 
deed, with  slight  touches  here  and  there,  they  might  do 
service  as  Unitarian  tracts  even  now ;   nor  have  Unitarians 
in  their  theological  literature  discussions  of  a  similar  char- 
acter more  nobly  or  more  reverently  toned. 

Among  the  marvellous  features  of  this  controversy  was 
the  vast  labor  it  implied  in  a  period  so  brief.  Taken  in 
connection  with  the  many  other  duties  that  engaged,  it 
was  an  exhibition  of  intellectual  prowess  not  often  paral- 
leled. The  first  lecture  was  given  on  the  Orthodox  side 
on  the  sixth  of  February;  the  last  was  given  by  Mr.  Mar- 
tineau on  the  seventh  of  May.  Between  these  dates  the 
whole  labor  must  be  compressed.  Yet  the  shortest  of 
Mr.  Martineau's  lectures,  if  given  in    full,  could    fall    but 


MINISTRY   IN   LIVERPOOL  7 1 

little  short  of  three  hours  in  average  pulpit  delivery,  and 
one  of  them  would  reach  four.  His  discussion  of  the 
Atonement,  together  with  preface  and  appendix,  reaches 
nearly  to  one  hundred  quarto  pages.  Mr.  Thom's  presen- 
tation of  the  Trinity  is  nearly  as  long.  Mr.  Martineau's 
five  lectures  with  their  prefaces  and  appendices  would 
make  a  quarto  volume  of  a  little  less  than  four  hundred 
pages ;  and  this,  it  should  be  remembered,  not  thought 
and  learning  crudely  thrown  together,  but  thoroughly 
organized,  nobly  elaborated  and  adorned.. 


CHAPTER  V 

MINISTRY  IN  LIVERPOOL  {continued) 

It  is  safe  to  affirm  that  Mr.  Martineau  emerged  from  this 
controversy  with  a  glad  sense  of  rehef.  We  can  enter  into 
the  satisfaction  with  which  he  resumed  the  less  distracted 
exercise  of  his  regular  and  more  congenial  offices,  the  new 
delight  of  unhurried  study  and  intercourse  with  friends. 

But  neither  in  his  own  consciousness  nor  in  general 
esteem  could  he  come  forth  from  such  a  contest  as  he 
went  into  it.  As  well  might  he  think  to  turn  his  dial  back, 
as  to  be  again  the  man  that  he  had  been.  Shape  it  to  his 
thought  however  modestly  he  might,  there  was  the  con- 
sciousness of  powers  which,  though  severely  tried,  had 
not  failed ;  powers,  therefore,  that  to  other  arduous  tasks 
could  be  confidently  applied.  Abroad  there  was  on  the 
one  side  the  new  admiration  of  his  friends  and  followers 
for  the  manifest  splendor  of  his  genius ;  on  the  other  side 
a  sort  of  admiration  by  inversion  of  the  brilliant  and 
powerful  heresiarch  that  Satan  had  let  loose  for  a 
season.  It  was,  in  a  sense,  a  new  attitude  in  which  he 
stood ;  there  was  a  new  part  that  he  must  bear.  A  new 
part  was,  indeed,  not  far  before  him,  in  which  his  proved 
powers  should  be  brought  to  other  and  severer  proof, 
in  which  expectation  should  again  be  distanced  by 
achievement. 

Meanwhile  there  were  sermons  to  preach,  the  young 
people  to  instruct,  his  parishioners  to  visit,  the  sorrowing 


MINISTRY  IN   LIVERPOOL  73 

to  comfort,  the  morally  lame  and  blind  to  heal  and  restore 
as  he  might.  With  these  offices,  together  with  his  books 
and  his  pen,  we  take  courage  to  hope  that  he  did  not  suffer 
from  ennui. 

Our  next  meeting  with  him  outside  his  appointed  walk  is 
in  the  September  following  the  controversy,  at  the  open- 
ing of  a  new  chapel  in  Manchester,  on  which  occasion  he 
preached  a  sermon  on  The  Outer  and  the  hitter  Temple^ 
which  they  who  heard  surely  did  not  soon  forget.  He 
drew  his  lesson  out  of  the  Messianic  idea,  which,  divested 
of  its  Jewish  coloring,  he  showed  to  be  not  especially  Jew- 
ish, but  the  property  of  mankind.  It  is  involved  in  the 
great  trust  in  Providence  that  ever  looks  for  a  better  that 
shall  come.  Ignorance  and  sin  shall  pass ;  where  now  is 
strife  the  dove  of  Peace  shall  hover;  and  whatever  power 
works  to  this  end  is  the  Messiah  of  God's  appointing.  But 
over  against  the  Messiah  that  God  in  his  wisdom  appoints, 
we  meet  the  Messiah  which  man  in  his  foolishness  expects 
and  insists  on  having;  and  the  two  come  into  sorrowful 
collision.  And  the  error  being  not  national  but  human,  it 
is  ours  to-day  as  it  was  theirs  with  whom  Jesus  walked  and 
suffered.  Then,  turning  to  the  times  of  Jesus,  and  placing 
the  expectations  that  met  him  in  contrast  with  the 
reality  he  was,  —  God's  Messiah  and  man's,  —  he  draws 
out  the  impressive  lesson :  — 

"  See,  first,  how  the  great  Father  rebukes  every  plan  of 
partial  and  exclusive  deliverance ;  and  declares  that  any 
rescue  of  his  must  fold  the  earth  in  its  embrace.  The 
Hebrews  would  have  had  a  divine  Emancipator  to  be  theirs 
alone  ;  the  child  of  a  nation  ;  the  property  of  a  class  ;  the 
personal  concentration  of  their  collective  peculiarities;  the 
punisher  of  other  men's  hatred  and  contempt,  by  adopting 
and  indulging  their  own.  .  .  .  He  takes  a  village  Christ, 
whose  soul  is  human,  and  not  Hebrew;  whose  spirit  has 
become  acquainted  with  men  in  the  retreats    of  families, 


74  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

not  in  the  schools  of  Priests  and  Pharisees ;  and  felt  the 
presence  of  God  in  the  stainless  breath  of  his  native  hills, 
and  the  lilies  of  his  native  fields,  more  than  in  the  smoke 
of  altars,  and  the  withered  fragrance  of  incense ;  —  one  who 
would  neither  strive  nor  cry,  who  had  no  scorn  except  for 
narrow  affections  and  mean  pretences ;  from  whose  voice 
hearers,  listening  for  denunciation,  receive  the  tones  more 
piercing  far,  of  a  divine  forgiveness ;  and  whose  eye,  when 
spectators  look  for  the  flash  of  resentment,  fills  only  with 
silent  tears.  Nor  was  this  all ;  for  when  his  countrymen, 
enraged  that  his  mind  is  not  exclusively  theirs,  led  him 
away  to  Calvary,  God  does  but  take  the  occasion  to  wrest 
from  them  his  person  too ;  permits  his  executioners  to 
destroy  the  only  part  of  his  nature  in  which  he  resembled 
them,  and  then  redeems  the  everlasting  elements  of  his 
humanity  for  a  blessing  to  all  people  and  all  times ;  and 
says  to  Death,  '  Take  now  the  son  of  David,  but  leave 
the  son  of  Man ;  the  Israelite  is  thine,  but  I  suffer  not  my 
holy  one  to  see  corruption.'  And  so,  the  cross,  which  was 
to  disown  him  as  the  Messiah  of  Jerusalem,  made  him  the 
Messiah  of  mankind."  ^ 

The  following  year,  1840,  he  did  great  service  by  bring- 
ing out  a  second  hymn-book.  It  was  entitled  Hymns  for 
the  Christian  Church  and  Home.  It  was  a  careful  and  toil- 
some collection  of  six  hundred  and  fifty-one  hymns.  The 
book  contained,  besides  the  ordinary  conveniences  for  its 
special  use,  a  reference  to  Scripture  texts,  of  which  the 
hymns  are  the  designed  or  unpremeditated  utterance,  and 
a  preface  which  no  student  of  Hymnology  can  afford  to 
pass.  It  attracted  wide  attention,  and  came  into  very 
general  use  in  the  Unitarian  churches  in  England.  It  ran 
through  a  large  number  of  editions,  was  in  use,  indeed,  for 
a  third  of  a  century,  till  he  himself  superseded  it  with 
another  collection. 

1  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  iv.  pp.  375~377' 


MINISTRY   IN   LIVERPOOL  75 

A  discussion  of  this  book,  though  very  tempting,  must 
not  be  indulged  in  here ;  it  contains  two  hymns,  however, 
which  we  must  note  for  their  pecuHar  interest.  They  are 
widely  known  now,  but  their  first  appearance  was  in  this 
volume.  One,  uttering  in  verse  the  deep  sentiment  of  the 
Scripture,  "  with  his  stripes  we  are  healed,"  begins  with  the 
familiar  stanza,  — 

"  A  voice  upon  the  midnight  air, 

Where  Kedron's  moonlit  waters  stray, 
Weeps  forth  in  agony  of  prayer, 
'  O  Father !  take  this  cup  away ! '  " 

The  other,  a  song  of  trust,  drawn  out  of  the  text 
"Though  he  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  in  him,"  sings  to 
the  experience  of  how  many  hearts,  — 

"  Thy  way  is  in  the  deep,  O  Lord  ! 
E'en  there  we  'II  go  with  thee  : 
We  '11  meet  the  tempest  at  thy  word, 
And  walk  upon  the  sea  I  "  ^ 

Both  these  hymns  are  entered  as  anonymous;  yet  was 
their  author  well  known  to  the  compiler,  for  he  was  none 
other  than  Mr.  Martineau  himself. 

We  come  now  to  the  "  new  part"  he  was  to  bear;  this 
year,  1840,  he  was  appointed  Professor  of  Mental  and 
Moral  Philosophy  and  Political  Economy  in  Manchester 
New  College.  This  event  determined  his  life  to  Philoso- 
phy conjointly  with  Theology.  Here  for  forty-five  years 
he  was  to  toil  at  the  deep  problems  of  the  sages,  subject- 
ing their  doctrines  to  the  severest  analysis,  and  dropping 
his  plummet  into  deeps  they  did  not  sound. 

1  This  hymn  has  been  widely  appropriated,  and  prevailingly  with  a 
departure  from  Mr.  Martineau  in  the  first  line  by  the  use  of  the  preposition 
"on"  instead  of  "in,"  — "^«  the  deep "  rather  than  " /«  the  deep." 
Whether  this  is  from  mistake,  or  through  the  exercise  of  that  very  ques- 
tionable right,  which  many  compilers  claim,  to  reconstruct  hymns,  I  cannot 
say  ;  but  the  sense  is  materially  different. 


'j6  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

It  is  with  peculiar  interest  that  we  look  back  from  the 
nonagenarian  sage  to  the  thinker  of  thirty-five.  It  was  at 
the  opening  of  the  October  session  of  the  College  that  he 
gave  his  introductory  lecture,  in  which  we  may  divine 
something  of  the  spirit  of  Sir  Galahad  going  forth  in  search 
for  the  San  Greal.  Easily  and  naturally,  but  with  a  sus- 
tained eloquence,  he  told  his  hearers  how  Philosophy  arose, 
outlined  the  vast  tracts  it  was  his  hope  to  explore,  enjoined 
the  severe  method  by  which  alone  philosophical  studies  can 
be  successfully  pursued,  and  justified  the  claim  of  Philoso- 
phy to  be  the  promoter  of  man's  higher  welfare.  "  Com- 
plaints," says  he,  "  are  often  made  of  the  uncertain  and 
shadowy  results  from  all  speculative  science :  and  certainly 
it  will  construct  no  docks ;  lay  down  no  railways ;  weave 
no  cotton  ;  and,  if  civilization  is  to  be  measured  exclusively 
by  the  scale  and  grandeur  of  its  material  elements,  we  can 
claim  for  our  subject  no  large  operation  on  human  im- 
provement. To  use  the  words  of  Novalis,  .  .  .  '  Philosophy 
can  bake  no  bread ;  but  it  can  procure  for  us  God,  freedom, 
and  immortality.'  "  He  makes  his  own  the  question  of 
the  German,  "  Which,  now,  is  more  practical,  philosophy 
or  economy?"  Still  further  does  he  press  claim  for  its 
dignity  and  usefulness :  "  What  periods  could  be  least 
well  spared  from  the  progress  of  civilization?  Surely, 
the  golden  ages  of  philosophy  in  Greece,  and  its  revival 
in  modern  England,  France,  and  Germany.  What  are 
the  names,  whose  loss  from  the  annals  of  our  race  would 
introduce  the  most  terrible  and  dreary  changes  in  its  sub- 
sequent advance?  Those  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  in  the 
ancient  world ;  of  Bacon,  Locke,  and  Kant  in  more  recent 
times :  and  it  is  surely  easier  to  conceive  what  we  should 
have  been  without  Homer,  than  without  Socrates."  ^ 

Mr.  Martineau   had  now  vocation  and  avocation,  and  to 
both  he  brought  a  consecrated  genius.     The  toiling  pro- 

1  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  iv.  p.  17. 


MINISTRY  IN   LIVERPOOL  7/ 

fessor  would  leave  in  his  church  no  duty  unperformed ; 
the  hard-worked  minister  would  go  with  no  slipshod  prep- 
aration to  the  professor's  chair.  The  College  had  just 
returned  to  Manchester  after  its  thirty-seven  years  in 
York,  and  he  was  here  one  day  each  week  for  the  delivery 
of  his  lectures.  These  must  perforce  be  freshly  prepared ; 
and  under  any  circumstances  they  could  have  cost  him  no 
trifling  toil.  There  was,  too,  a  feature  of  his  situation  that 
must  have  added  not  slightly  to  his  labors.  The  keeper  of 
a  lighthouse  knows  always  where  he  is,  and  with  ready 
tongue  can  name  the  headlands  and  islands  he  looks  out 
upon  ;  but  a  sailor  on  the  deep  must  take  frequent  and  care- 
ful reckonings  if  he  will  know  his  longitudes.  Mr.  Marti- 
neau  was  on  the  deep,  and,  as  a  pilot  to  other  mariners,  he 
had  now  a  peculiar  interest  in  his  reckonings.  The  truth 
was  that  he  was  somewhat  out  of  his  reckoning,  and  was  em- 
barrassed in  consequence.  He  had  early  settled,  as  we  have 
seen,  on  the  creed  of  philosophical  Necessity,  and  this  he 
supposed  himself  to  hold  ;  but  somehow  preparation  such 
as  he  had  did  not  satisfy,  and  former  opinions  needed  to  be 
qualified.  The  fact  was  that,  without  clearly  seeing  it,  he 
was  in  process  of  transition  :  the  faith  to  which  he  thought  he 
was  leading  others,  he  was  himself  abandoning.  Curiously, 
but  not  unnaturally,  the  true  status  of  his  mind  was  shown 
him  by  another  rather  than  discovered  by  himself.  The 
syllabus  of  his  first  course  of  lectures  came  into  the  hands 
of  his  friend,  John  Stuart  Mill,^  whose  searching  glance 
measured  his  departure  from  the  Necessarian  standards, 
and  detected  the  direction  in  which  his  mind  was  moving. 
Mr.  Martineau  pleasantly  remarks :  "Though  he  saw  to 
the  bottom  of  my  apostasy,  he  did  not  cut  me  off  as  a  lost 
soul.  On  the  contrary,  his  manifestation  of  friendly  inter- 
est in  my  future  work  at  old  problems  on  new  lines  was 
gracious  and  respectful." 

1  Preface  to  Types  of  Ethical  Theory,  p.  xi. 


78  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

Thus  doubly  occupied  as  minister  and  professor,  it  is 
not  surprising  that  during  the  next  five  years  he  did  Httle 
outside  critical  labor.  In  1841  he  printed  an  essay,  which 
had  evidently  done  service  as  a  lecture,  on  Five  Points  of 
Christian  Faith}  a  very  eloquent  presentation  of  his 
attitude  as  a  Unitarian  theologian.  During  the  same  year 
he  wrote  the  letter  on  Lant  Carpenter  published  in  the 
Memoirs  prepared  by  Dr.  Carpenter's  son,  one  of  the 
fairest  tributes  a  pupil  ever  bore   his  master. 

The  next  year  he  printed  nothing  of  importance ;  the 
year  following,  1843,  dates  a  blessing  to  many  minds  and 
hearts,  the  first  series  of  Endeavors  after  the  Christian 
Life,  a  selection  from  his  pulpit  discourses.  Hitherto  his 
printed  words  had  been  mainly  critical  or  polemical ;  here 
was  the  message  of  the  religious  teacher,  spoken  to  the 
faiths  and  hopes  of  men. 

This  book  we  shall  meet  again  when  we  shall  linger  over 
its  pages.  To-day  we  place  it  on  our  library  shelves  with 
the  classic  literature  of  devotion,  —  different  enough  from 
the  Thcologia  Germanica,  yet  rightfully  in  its  companion- 
ship ;  not  at  all  like  Holy  Living  and  Holy  Dying,  yet 
worthy  to  stand  beside  it;  yet  at  its  coming  those  in  the 
judgment-seats  of  criticism  betrayed  no  special  enthusiasm. 
To  English  Churchdom  it  was  a  light  that  did  not  shine 
through  cathedral  windows;  hardly,  therefore,  to  be  seen; 
and  those  who  from  their  position  might  have  been  sup- 
posed to  see,  apparently  saw  rather  dimly.  The  Chj'istian 
Reformer  smiled  dubiously;  the  CJiristian  Examiner  was 
critical  rather  than  cordial ;  the  prevailing  approval  was 
the  faint  praise  that  damns.  A  good  book,  however,  is  a 
magnet  that  attracts  its  own ;  and  neither  critical  indiffer- 
ence nor  critical  disparagement  can  permanently  annul  its 
influence.  This  book  found  readers,  and  after  more  than 
fifty  years  it  finds  them  still.  The  edition  now  selling  in 
America  is  printed  from  the  eighth  English  edition. 
1  See  Studies  of  Christianity,  edited  by  William  R.  Alger. 


MINISTRY  IN  LIVERPOOL  79 

In  1845  he  resumed  those  critical  studies  by  which  he 
was  to  become  so  widely  known.  The  Prospective  Review 
of  that  year  was  enriched  with  elaborate  and  eloquent  dis- 
cussions of  the  Life  and  Correspondence  of  Thomas  Arnold, 
Church  and  State,  WhewelVs  Morality.  The  following 
year  he  contributed  to  the  same  magazine  a  discussion  of 
Whewell  's  Systematic  Morality  and  Theodore  Parker  s  Dis- 
course on  Matters  Pertaining  to  Religion}  In  1847  ap- 
peared the  second  series  of  Endeavors,  too  like  the  first  to 
need  special  comment,  and  in  the  Westminster  Reviezv  a 
paper  on  Strauss  and  Theodore  Parker.  In  1848  the 
readers  of  the  Prospective  Review  met  articles  from  his 
pen  on  William  E.  Channing  and  Philosophical  Christianity 
in  France,  and  thence  on  such,  in  the  main,  is  the  story ! 

Such,  in  the  main,  the  story !  Alas  for  his  biographer 
who  would  fain  give  the  charm  of  variety  to  his  narrative 
that  it  is  such  !  Were  there  only  some  conspicuous  intel- 
lectual gyrations  of  which  to  tell,  some  striking  eccen- 
tricities to  explain,  a  few  wrong  deeds  for  which  to 
apologize,  how  might  they  add  interest  to  these  pages  ! 
Just  the  labors  of  the  Christian  teacher  and  scholar,  — 
that  is  all ;  and  of  these  how  monotonous  the  tale  !  This 
day-by-day  sunshine  is  very  well ;  but  it  is  in  the  narrative 
of  simooms  and  cyclones  and  thunder-storms  that  we  are 
interested.  Very  possibly  some  one  who  h^s  lived  near 
that  Hfe,  in  the  record  of  personal  incidents  and  experi- 
ences, —  joys,  pains,  friendships,  —  may  find  a  variety  these 
pages  cannot  offer.  But  even  here,  from  the  prevailing 
evenness  and  decorum  there  must  be  limitations.  In  a 
Bentley  not  even  a  Boswell  should  have  found  a  Johnson. 

We  do,  however,  approach  here  an  incident  of  interest 
and  importance.  Under  his  faithful  and  able  ministry  his 
church  had  prospered ;  but  the  rapid  growth  of  Liverpool, 

1  All  these  papers  are  reprinted  in  the  four  volumes  of  Essays,  Reviews^ 
and  Addresses. 


80  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

by  enlarging  the  business  quarter,  had  sent  the  residents 
farther  away,  and  the  Paradise  Street  Chapel  had  become  in- 
conveniently distant  from  the  congregation  that  worshipped 
within  it.  It  was  determined,  therefore,  to  build  a  new 
chapel  in  Hope  Street ;  and  of  this  the  foundation  stone 
was  laid  in  May,  1848.  Worn  from  excessive  toil,  Mr. 
Martineau  seized  upon  the  opportunity  for  a  period  of  rest 
and  study  in  Germany.  He  took  with  him  his  entire 
family;  his  eldest  son,  then  at  University  College,  London, 
he  transferred  for  the  time  to  the  University  at  Berlin. 

In  May  he  assisted  in  laying  the  corner-stone  of  the 
new  chapel.  In  July  he  went  to  Dresden,  where  in  the 
art  galleries  he  found  both  profit  and  recreation.  Thence 
he  went  in  October  to  Berlin,  where  he  settled  down  to 
study.  Trendelenburg  was  then  there,  and  of  him  he 
took  lectures  in  logic  and  the  history  of  philosophy. 
Trendelenburg  was  an  able  expounder  of  the  Stagirite, 
and  this  circumstance  brought  Mr.  Martineau  to  Greek 
philosophical  studies,  the  effect  of  which  was,  in  his  own 
language,  a  "  new  intellectual  birth."  "  I  seemed  to  pierce, 
through  what  had  been  words  before,  into  contact  with 
living  thought,  and  the  black  grammatical  text  was  aglow 
with  luminous  philosophy."  ^  He  also  bestowed  a  good  deal 
of  attention  upon  German  Philosophy,  and  his  friend,  R.  H, 
Hutton,  who  was  with  him,  tells  how  in  the  depths  of  a 
German  winter  they  toiled  in  a  fruitless  chase  after  Hegel's 
"  pure  being  and  pure  nothing."  Together  also  they  bent 
over  the  more  luminous  page  of  Plato.  He  found  it  of 
great  advantage  to  pursue  Greek  and  later  German  thought 
together,  for  the  light  they  shed  upon  each  other.  He  once 
told  a  friend  that  he  never  understood  Aristotle's  Ethics 
till  he  translated  it  into  German  in  Trendelenburg's  class- 
room ;  and  in  the  preface  to  the  Types  he  tells  us  that  the 
"  new  way  of  entrance  upon  ancient  literature  .  .  .  lifted 
1  Preface  to  Types  0/ Ethical  Theory,  pp.  xii-xiii. 


MINISTRY   IN   LIVERPOOL  8 1 

the  darkness  from  the  pages  of  Kant  and  even  Hegel." 
The  effect  of  these  studies,  however,  was  something  more 
than  enlarged  knowledge ;  from  their  influence  the  deflec- 
tion from  the  Necessarian  view  which  Mill  had  detected 
reached  to  conscious  and  complete  repudiation.  He  was 
converted  to  that  spiritual  philosophy  of  which,  through  all 
his  toilsome  life  he  was  to  be  a  fervid  apostle.  In  the  pref- 
ace to  the  Types  he  tells  us  :  "  The  metaphysic  of  the  world 
had  come  home  to  me,  and  never  again  could  I  say  that 
phenomena,  in  their  clusters  and  chains,  were  all,  or  find 
myself  in  a  universe  with  no  categories  but  the  like  and 
unlike,  the  synchronous  and  successive.  The  possible  also 
is,  whether  it  happens  or  not ;  and  its  categories,  of  the 
right,  the  beautiful,  the  necessarily  true,  may  have  their 
contents  defined  and  held  ready  for  realization,  whatever 
centuries  lapse  ere  they  appear."  ^ 

This  vacation  period  was  not  without  its  distractions. 
He  had  illness  in  his  family,  the  excitement  of  war  was  in 
Germany.  It  was,  however,  a  period  of  intellectual  activ- 
ity of  which  the  results  were  of  great  significance.  It 
brought  him  also  somewhat  of  diversion.  There  was  the 
kindling  spectacle  of  the  Bavarian  Alps ;  there  was  a  resi- 
dence of  six  weeks  in  the  secularized  convent  of  St.  Zeno ; 
a  sail  in  a  private  boat  down  the  Danube,  a  brief  stay  in 
Vienna.  There  was  also  inspiring  intercourse  with  great 
minds,  among  them  Trendelenburg,  the  Zumpts,  Von  Ranke. 

He  returned  in  October,  1849,  after  an  absence  of  fifteen 
months.  The  beautiful  Hope  Street  Church  was  ready  for 
him.  In  his  opening  discourse  he  remembered  those  who 
had  died  in  his  absence,  in  a  passage  of  tenderest  signifi- 
cance: "Those  close-filled  ranks  cannot  hide  from  me  the 
vacancies  in  their  midst;  and  I  miss  here  the  sweet  atten- 
tive look  of  maidenly  docility,  there  the  dear  and  venerable 

^  p.  xiii. 


82  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

form  of  one  from  whose  eyes  age  had  exhausted  the  vision 
but  not  the  tears."  This  dear  and  venerable  one  was  his 
mother. 

The  church  and  the  college  labors  were  both  renewed 
with  the  wonted  tireless  industry.  To  the  College  he  must 
carry  the  new  light ;  and  to  this  end  his  lectures,  labori- 
ously prepared,  must  be  superseded  by  new  ones,  or  re- 
constructed into  congruity  with  the  "  metaphysic  of  the 
world."  His  critical  labors  were  renewed,  if,  indeed,  they 
had  been  intermitted.  In  1849  he  printed  a  second  paper 
on  Channing.  The  following  year  he  wrote  the  noble 
papers  on  Letter  and  Spirit  and  F.  W.  Newman's  Phases 
of  Faith  and  the  Church  of  England.  The  year  following 
came  the  essays  on  The  Creed  of  Christendom,  The  Battle 
of  the  Churches,  Europe  since  the  Reformation,  and  the 
sadly  famous  essay  on  Mesmeric  Atheism.  These  were  all 
notable  papers. 

We  come  now  to  a  passage  in  his  life  of  which  we  would 
willingly  be  silent,  did  it  not  seem  cowardly  to  be  so ;  I 
mean  the  estrangement  between  him  and  his  sister  Harriet ; 
or,  perhaps  I  might  better  say,  her  estrangement  from 
him ;  for  through  all  the  dismal  years  of  banishment  from 
her  sympathy  he  preserved  for  her  the  fraternal  heart.^ 
Besides,  simple  right  seems  to  require  that  the  story 
be  told  again.  All  the  world  has  heard  it,  but,  in  the 
main,  they  have  heard  but  one  version  of  it ;  and  here,  as 
ever, 

"  One  man's  word  is  no  man's  word, 
Justice  asks  that  both  be  heard." 

The    name  of  Harriet  Martineau   is  one  to  be  spoken 

1  I  never  reciprocated  the  alienation  from  which  I  suffered,  and  should 
have  escaped  a  real  sorrow,  had  the  efforts  to  remove  it  been  successful.  It 
has  simply  counted  for  me  as  an  instance  more  of  my  sister's  liability  to 
oscillate  between  extremes  of  devotedness  and  sympathy,  and  has  in  no  way 
disenchanted  the  old  affection,  or  impaired  my  estimate  of  her  high  aims, 
her  large  powers,  and  her  noble  private  virtues.  (Dr.  Martineau  in  the  London 
Daily  Nezvs,  December  30,  18S4.) 


MINISTRY   IN   LIVERPOOL  83 

with  admiration.  She  was  a  woman  of  large  powers  and 
generous  sympathies,  and  through  toilsome  and  suffering 
years  she  consecrated  both  to  the  service  of  humanity. 
Her  intellect  had  not  the  penetration  of  her  brother's,  but 
it  was  more  versatile ;  and  though  we  would  rather  meet 
him  on  the  judgment-seat  where  ethical  justice  must  be 
given  voice,  in  her  was  the  more  cosmopolitan  sympathy. 
While  he  would  wage  unrelenting  battle  with  the  wrong  that 
smites,  she  would  meet  the  sufferer  with  the  readier  smile. 

She  was  a  great  and  noble  woman,  but  to  all  their  limi- 
tations. Her  devotion  to  truth  was  unquestionable;  the 
patience  that  searches  for  the  simple  verity  of  things  was 
not  so  marked  in  her.  She  was  of  the  stuff  of  which  mar- 
tyrs, not  philosophers,  are  made.  Her  judgment,  whatever 
it  was,  she  would  stand  by  at  any  cost,  but  she  was  not 
sure  to  come  to  it  by  the  way  of  careful  discrimination. 
Hence  her  opinions,  whether  of  men  or  of  doctrines,  wear 
often  a  per  saltiim  and  even  a  capricious  look. 

She  had  a  twofold  physical  affliction,  ill-health  and  deaf- 
ness. In  spite  of  these  she  achieved  her  brave  and  brilliant 
career ;  but  none  the  less  it  is  difficult  not  to  believe 
that  they  gave  a  color  to  her  spirit  by  which  things  and 
people  were  sometimes  disco\oxe6.  to  her  apprehension. 
Such  extenuation  it  is  easy  to  exaggerate,  and  she  would 
be  the  last  to  ask  it ;  and  few  who  have  suffered  as  much 
have  needed  it  so  little.  But  few  spirits  are  so  stoical  or 
so  Christian  as  to  be  lifted  above  a  rasping  pain  or  a  tor- 
menting malady.  Emerson  with  Carlyle's  dyspepsia  very 
likely  had  not  scolded  like  Carlyle,  but  we  fear  he  had 
been  a  different  Emerson. 

She  had  a  will  whose  servant  she  was,  and  others  who 
would  prosper  with  her  must  needs  be ;  her  conscientious- 
ness was  absolute,  but  needed  now  and  then  to  be  toned 
with  "  sweet  reasonableness ;  "  her  charity  was  large,  but 
of  the  kind  that  sometimes  faileth. 


84  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

As  is  known  to  all  the  world,  she  experienced  a  great 
change  in  her  religious  and  philosophical  attitude.  She 
began  life  a  very  devout  Unitarian,  mildly  shading  off  from 
the  Presbyterianism  of  her  family.  She  became  the  dis- 
ciple and  translator  of  Auguste  Comte ;  later  she  sat  down 
at  the  feet  of  the  phrenologist  and  mesmerist,  Henry  George 
Atkinson. 

Though  it  was  from  her  relation  with  Atkinson  that  the 
estrangement  culminated,  they  mistake  who  suppose  it 
began  there.  The  relations  between  her  and  her  brother 
in  earlier  years  had  been  peculiarly  sympathetic ;  in  all  her 
heroic  struggle  he  had  braced  her  with  his  counsel  and  en- 
couragement. Correspondence  had  flowed  on  between 
them,  unreserved,  fraternal,  tender;  domestic  interests, 
financial  perplexities,  literary  aims,  personal  ambitions, 
religious  doubts  and  hopes,  they  had  laid  before  each 
other  with  a  freedom  which  only  the  warmest  sympathy 
can  make  possible.  At  length  she  issued  a  mandate  to 
her  correspondents  that  they  should  destroy  her  letters. 
The  penalty  of  disobedience  was  that  they  should  receive 
no  more.  Her  brother  remonstrated.  The  letters  he  had 
were  the  record  of  a  brave  struggle  which  should  not 
be  lost ;  they  were  besides  very  dear  to  him,  and  he  could 
not  part  with  them.  Her  threat  was  not  at  first  executed 
in  full;  but  her  "letters  became  notes,  ever  fewer  and 
more  far  between,  limited  to  matters  of  fact,  comparatively 
dry  and  cold."  They  ceased  altogether  before  the  Atkin- 
son episode  to  which  now  we  come. 

Henry  George  Atkinson  was  a  man  not  without  intelli- 
gence of  a  certain  order.  He  seems  to  have  studied 
Bacon;  he  had  acquaintance  with  physiology;  he  had 
given  special  attention  to  phrenology  and  mesmerism; 
from  the  only  writing  we  have  from  him  one  may  gather 
many  illustrations  of  the  mentally  strange  and  abnormal. 
But  one   who   may  astonish  in   a   drawing-room  may  be 


MINISTRY  IN   LIVERPOOL  85 

quite  out  of  place  in  a  congress  of  sages ;  and  the  efforts 
to  sustain  him  in  the  role  of  unappreciated  genius  have 
been  wholly  abortive.  The  one  thing  he  did  discredits 
such  an  estimate  of  him,  and  the  fact  that  he  did  nothing 
else  still  further  discredits  it.  Men  with  doctrines  as  un- 
popular as  his  have  conquered  admiration;  yet,  in  culti- 
vated English  society,  inquire  for  Henry  George  Atkinson, 
and  there  may  be  remembrance  of  him  as  one  who  had  a 
little  cheap  notoriety  many  years  ago,  which  a  peculiar  re- 
lation with  Miss  Martineau  gave  him,  and  httle  more  is 
known  of  him.  Left  to  himself,  he  sank  to  a  natural  ob- 
scurity, out  of  which  she  had  lifted  him  for  a  brief  period. 
Yet  this  man  Harriet  Martineau,  immeasurably  his  superior, 
whom  they  of  regal  intellect  most  justly  honored,  accepted 
as  her  philosopher !  At  his  feet  she  sat  down  as  a  learner ! 
The  result  of  this  intellectual  mesalliance  was  a  book  on 
The  Laws  of  Mans  Nature  and  Development.  It  com- 
prised a  series  of  letters  that  passed  between  them,  in 
which  Mr.  Atkinson  assumed  the  tone  of  the  most  confi- 
dent of  masters,  and  Miss  Martineau  that  of  the  most 
docile  of  disciples.  It  was  in  large  part  a  crude  and  super- 
ficial handling  of  man's  deepest  and  dearest  faiths.  "  Phi- 
losophy finds  no  God  in  nature,"  it  tells  us,  "  no  personal 
being  or  creator,  nor  sees  the  want  of  any ;  nor  has  God 
revealed  himself  miraculously."  The  belief  in  another  life 
is  a  harmless  delusion  "  so  long  as  it  does  not  interfere  with 
our  conduct  in  this."  "  Free  will !  the  very  idea  is  enough 
to  make  a  Democritus  fall  on  his  back  and  roar  with  laugh- 
ter, and  a  more  serious  thinker  almost  despair  of  bringing 
men  to  their  reason."  The  doctrine  of  moral  responsibility 
is  declared  "  untrue  and  immoral."  The  outlook  for  man's 
better  condition  is  not  in  allegiance  to  a  high  and  Holy 
One,  not  in  incentives  enkindled  by  the  hope  of  immor- 
tality, not  in  obedience  to  the  sense  of  obligation,  not  in 
all  together;  but  in  the  study  of  the  laws  of  man's  nature, 


86  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

which  in  their  last  statement  are  physical  laws.  The  clue 
to  this  study,  the  light  among  lights  of  superlative  bright- 
ness, is  mesmerism. 

The  book,  bearing  simply  the  name  of  Henry  George 
Atkinson,  had  surely  fallen  flat.  Had  the  name  of  Harriet 
Smith  or  of  Harriet  Jones  been  coupled  with  his,  its  fate 
had  been  no  better.  It  bore,  however,  with  his  the  name 
of  Harriet  Martineau,  at  that  time  the  most  prominent 
woman  in  England.  The  attention  that  it  received  and 
the  impression  that  it  made  were,  therefore,  out  of  all 
proportion  to  its  interior  significance.  In  such  cases,  too, 
names  do  not  stand  for  individuals  alone,  but  for  family 
and  affiliations  also.  Miss  Martineau  was  not  merely  Miss 
Martineau  ;  she  was  the  sister  of  James  Martineau,  who 
was  fast  becoming  one  of  the  most  potent  forces  in  Eng- 
lish thought  and  letters ;  she  was  a  member  of  a  circle ; 
she  had  come  out  from  a  sect  of  which,  or  of  whose 
tendencies,  however  absurdly,  she  was  held  to  be  repre- 
sentative. These  circumstances  gave  significance  to  her 
position  and  weight  to  her  words. 

Mr.  Martineau  was  at  that  time  one  of  the  editors  of  the 
Prospective  Review,  and  the  book  required  notice  in  its 
pages.  Thoroughly  to  have  reviewed  the  book  could 
not  have  been  a  labor  of  love  to  any  one  of  his  editorial 
associates.  Besides,  in  the  general  division  of  labor, 
the  treatment  of  books  and  subjects  of  a  speculative 
character  was  peculiarly  his  office.  Most  unwillingly, 
therefore,  he  sat  down  to  the  task  it  seemed  ignoble  to 
shirk,  and  the  result  was  the  article  on  Mesmeric  Atheism. 
It  was  a  trenchant  and  searching  review,  certainly  within 
the  requirements  of  polemical  morality,  but  remorseless 
in  the  exposure  of  flimsy  logic  and  shallow  sophistry. 
It  was  not  merely  an  answer  to  the  book ;  it  was  its  com- 
plete annihilation.  Of  his  sister  he  spoke  most  gently, 
but  Atkinson    fared  somewhat  hardly  at   his  hands.     He 


MINISTRY   IN   LIVERPOOL  8/ 

had  offered  himself  as  a  philosopher ;  his  credentials  had 
been  examined  and  he  was  dismissed  as  a  charlatan.  At 
this  treatment  of  her  hero  Miss  Martineau  was  deeply 
offended,  and  to  the  end  of  her  Hfe  repelled  all  offers  of 
reconciliation. 

Such  is  the  story  of  that  estrangement  which,  with  various 
coloring  and  distortion,  is  known  as  widely  as  the  suffer- 
ers from  it.  It  suggests  questions  of  mental  peculiarity  and 
moral  temperament  for  which  I  will  not  pause.  I  will  here 
only  remark  that  the  measure  of  offence  conceived  seems 
far  beyond  any  rational  estimate  of  the  offence  committed. 
A  brother's  refusal  to  destroy  a  sister's  letters  because  they 
are  dear  to  him  may  be  a  mistake ;  but  surely  it  would 
oftener  give  pleasure  than  provoke  resentment.  A  few 
passages  in  the  criticism  might  have  been  more  gently 
toned,  though  the  admirers  of  Miss  Martineau  could  hardly 
plead  her  example  in  asking  it.  To  the  plea  sometimes 
put  forth  that  the  criticism  did  violence  to  private  affec- 
tion, the  answer  is  obvious :  Truth,  like  the  Christ,  knows 
no  private  affection,  a  dictum  which  Harriet  Martineau 
surely  would  have  allowed.  And  I  cannot  help  feeling  that 
she  would  have  been  truer  to  herself  and  to  her  great  intel- 
lect and  heart,  if,  instead  of  thus  resenting,  she  had  kin- 
dled with  admiration  for  the  brother  whose  affection,  often 
tried  and  always  true,  could  not  deflect  him  from  that 
unsparing  truth  which  his  conscience  summoned  him  to 
declare. 


CHAPTER  VI 

LONDON 

The  decade  of  the  fifties  was  with  Mr.  Martineau  a  period 
of  great  hterary  activity,  and  in  it  he  brought  forth  some 
of  the  noblest  of  his  essays.  The  papers  on  Hamilton, 
Mill,  Mansel,  Comte,  Lessing,  Schleiermacher,  the  remark- 
able paper  on  Personal  Influences  on  Present  Theology, 
were  all  within  this  period.  He  wrote  for  the  N'ational 
Review,  the  Prospective,  and  the  Westminster,  commonly 
three  or  four  papers  yearly,  elaborate  and  brilliant  discus- 
sions of  great  problems  of  thought.  This  writing  alone 
would  seem  task  sufficient  for  high  talent  when  ordinarily 
industrious.  In  his  case  it  was  the  by-play  of  one  who 
kept  regular  appointment  with  the  pulpit  and  the  pro- 
fessor's chair. 

As  has  often  been  the  case  with  distinguished  English 
men  of  letters,  he  won  his  first  more  emphatic  recognition 
in  America.  In  1852  Crosby  and  Nichols  of  Boston 
brought  out  a  volume  of  his  essays  with  the  title  of  Mis- 
cellanies, under  the  editorial  care  of  Thomas  Starr  King. 
In  1858  the  American  Unitarian  Association  brought  out 
another  and  fuller  volume  entitled  Studies  of  Christianity, 
edited  by  William  R.  Alger.  A  little  later  he  was  invited 
to  visit  Boston  and  give  a  course  of  lectures  before  the 
Lowell  Institute,  and  had  he  come  these  profound  and 
brilliant  books  would  have  prepared  for  him  a  flattering 
welcome.  He  gave  the  invitation  a  favorable  answer ;  but 
the  first  interest  of  our  people  was  drafted  into  the  stern 


LONDON  89 

issues  of  the  Civil  War,  Mr.  Martineau,  like  many  another 
Englishman,  was  of  South-side  sympathy,  and  the  engage- 
ment was  postponed  to  another  day  that  never  dawned. 

There  came  a  change.  University  College  had  been  . 
established  in  London  on  that  broad  principle  of  "  free 
learning"  which  Manchester  New  College  had  struggled 
so  long  and  so  heroically  to  make  secure.  To  a  cer- 
tain extent  the  two  institutions  became  competitors,  and 
Manchester  New  College  suffered  from  the  competition. 
Lay  students  were  attracted  to  the  younger  and  better 
equipped  institution.  The  decision  was  made  to  make 
the  rival  an  ally;  and  in  1853  Manchester  New  College 
was  moved  to  London.  She  here  gave  up  in  the  main 
her  secular  courses,  for  which  the  confederate  institution 
could  the  better  care,  and  confined  herself  to  theology  and 
allied  studies. 

This  change  brought  extra  tax  upon  Mr.  Martineau. 
Manchester  was  one  hour  from  Liverpool;  London  was 
six  hours ;  and  this  long  journey  must  be  taken  to  keep 
appointment  with  his  classes.  He  was  obliged  to  make 
longer  and  less  frequent  visits,  compressing  into  a  day 
or  two  days  work  that  would  better  have  been  distributed 
through  four  or  five.  Of  course  the  arrangement  was 
wearisome  and  unsatisfactory. 

For  four  years,  however,  it  continued,  until  1857,  when 
he  was  invited  to  come  to  London  and  devote  all  his  time 
to  the  College.  The  invitation  was  accepted ;  and  the 
relations  with  his  church,  which  twenty-five  years  of  faith- 
ful toil  had  consecrated,  were  sundered.  On  the  second  of 
August  he  gave  his  parting  sermon,  in  which  he  told  his 
people  that  the  one  deep  faith  that  had  determined  his 
word  and  work  among  them  was  the  "  living  union  of  God 
with  our  Humanity."  This  further  passage  for  its  touch  of 
mental  history  should  be  quoted :  "  Long  did  this  faith 
pine  obscurely  within  me,  ere  it  could  find  its  way  to  any 


90  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

clear  joy.  It  was  not  enough  for  me  that  God  should, 
—  as  they  say,  'exist;'  it  was  needful  to  have  assurance 
that  he  lives.  It  was  a  poor  thought  that  he  was  the  be- 
ginning  of  all,  if  he  stood  aloof  from  it  in  its  constancy.  It 
withered  the  inmost  heart  to  believe  that  he  dwelt  and 
never  stirred  in  the  universal  space,  and  delegated  all 
to  inexorable  *  Laws ;  '  —  laws  that  could  never  hear  the 
most  piercing  shriek,  and  looked  with  stony  eyes  on  the 
upturned  face  of  agony.  It  seemed  to  stain  the  very 
heaven  to  charge  him  with  the  origin  of  human  guilt,  and 
represents  him  as  first  moulding  men  into  sin,  and  then 
punishing  them  out  of  it.  A  mere  constructing  and  legis- 
lating God,  satisfied  to  adjust  '  co-existences '  and  estab- 
lish '  successions ;  '  who  filled  the  cold  sky,  and  brooded 
over  the  waste  sea,  and  watched  upon  the  mountain- 
head,  and  embraced  the  waxing  and  waning  moon,  and 
suffered  the  tide  of  history  to  sweep  through  him  without 
heeding  its  most  passionate  and  surging  waves  ;  —  a  God 
who  wrung  from  us  a  thousand  sighs  that  never  touched 
him,  who  broke  us  in  remorse  for  ills  that  are  not  ours,  — 
who  drew  to  him,  day  and  night  without  ceasing,  moans  of 
prayer  he  never  answered; — such  a  One  it  was  a  vain 
attempt  really  to  trust  and  love.  At  times  the  faith  in  him 
appeared  but  to  turn  the  darkness  of  atheism  into  flame; 
and,  in  its  light,  the  face  of  this  blessed  life  and  universe 
lost  its  fostering  look,  and  seemed  twisted  into  an  Almighty 
sarcasm.  Nor  could  I  ever  feel  that  the  permanent 
stillness  and  personal  inaccessibility  of  God  was  at  all  com- 
pensated by  exceptional  miracle.  An  occasional  *  message  ' 
rather  serves  to  render  more  sensible  and  undeniable  the 
usual  absence  and  silence  ;  nor  can  the  '  sender  '  well  say 
to  his  servant,  '  You  go  there '  without  implying,  '  I  stay 
here.'  Merely  to  fling  in  to  the  Deist's  '  God  of  nature ' 
an  historical  fragment  of  miracle  does  little  to  meet  the 
exigencies  of  human  piety.     It  is  not  *  once  upon  a  time,' 


LONDON  91 

it  is  not  'now  and  then,'  —  nor  is  it  on  the  theatre  of 
another's  life  to  the  exclusion  of  our  own,  —  that  we  sigh 
to  escape  from  the  bound  movements  of  nature  into  the 
free  heart  of  God.  We  pine  as  prisoners,  till  we  burst 
into  the  air  of  that  supernatural  life  which  He  lives  eter- 
nally :  we  are  parched  with  a  holy  thirst,  till  we  find  con- 
tact with  the  running  waters  of  his  quick  affection.  Him 
immediately  ;  him  in  person  ;  him  in  whispers  of  the  day, 
and  eye  to  eye  by  night ;  him  for  a  close  refuge  in  temp- 
tation, not  as  a  large  thought  of  ours  but  as  an  Almighti- 
ness  in  himself;  him  ready  with  his  moistening  dews  for 
the  dry  heart,  and  his  breathings  of  hope  for  the  sorrow- 
ing ;  him  always  and  everywhere  living  for  our  holy  trust, 
do  we  absolutely  need  for  our  repose,  and  wildly  wander 
till  we  find."i 

The  invitation  to  move  to  London  was  attended  by  an 
incident  that  should  not  be  passed  unnoticed.  English 
Unitarianism  was  then,  as  ever,  of  old  school  and  new;  and 
at  the  head  of  the  College  was  John  James  Tayler.  Against 
Mr.  Tayler  it  was  possible  to  allege  a  wide  departure  from 
Orthodox  opinion ;  but  even  theological  animosity  could  do 
no  more.  His  learning  was  large,  his  insight  profound,  his 
candor  unflinching.  Few  have  ever  met  their  fellow-men 
with  gentler  spirit  or  looked  to  God  in  sincerer  worship. 

At  this  time  he  had  not  written  in  support  of  the  Tu- 
bingen view  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  but  he  was  known  to  be 
in  sympathy  with  German  culture,  and  through  him  more, 
perhaps,  than  through  any  other  man  was  the  influence  of 
Germany  being  felt  in  the  liberal  churches  of  England. 
In  fact,  while  as  a  worshipper  he  was  of  all  schools,  as  a 
scholar  and  thinker  he  was  emphatically  of  the  new. 
Mr.  Martineau  was  of  the  new  school  also,  and  known  of 
all  men  to  be  so; — hence  an  old-school  panic.  By  the 
side  of  such  a  man  as  Mr.  Tayler  shall  we  place  such  a 

1  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  iv.  pp.  5 ^^5' 7- 


92  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

man  as  Mr.  Martincau?  Will  it  not  be  giving  to  new- 
school  opinions  too  preponderant  an  influence?  Should 
not  Mr.  Tayler  be  counterpoised  by  a  representative  of 
less  radical  views?  In  pursuance  of  this  feeling  a  protest 
was  circulated  against  Mr.  Martineau's  appointment.  It 
was  signed  numerously  and  by  some  of  the  best  of  men, 
friends  and  even  relatives  of  Mr.  Martineau,  who  knew  the 
difference  between  truth  and  affection,  and  could  be  faithful 
to  both  without  confounding  their  offices.  Indeed,  if  we  may 
judge  from  the  prints  of  the  time,  a  considerable  feeling 
was  stirred,  and  the  measure  of  Mr.  Martineau's  departure 
from  the  standards  of  orthodox  Unitarianism  was  freely 
and  even  earnestly  canvassed.  The  flurry  passed  like  a 
summer  squall,  after  which  all  nature  beams  again. 

Though  the  beginning  of  Mr.  Martineau's  connection 
with  the  College  in  London  was  not  free  from  anxiety,  yet 
on  the  whole  his  relations  with  it  were  exceedingly  pleas- 
ant. At  its  head  and  in  the  chair  of  Biblical  and  flistorical 
Theology  .was  one  of  the  most  personal  of  his  personal 
friends,  a  brother  of  his  heart;  in  the  chair  of  Hebrew 
Language  and  Literature  was  his  own  gifted  son.  Happy 
the  council  of  wisdom  to  which  affection  brings  a  grace  ! 

The  number  of  students  was  not  large,  —  in  fact  it  was 
very  small.  The  catalogue,  however,  of  those  years  bears 
names  that  have  since  been  widely  mentioned,  among  them 
Alexander  Gordon,  R.  A.  Armstrong,  J.  Estlin  Carpenter, 
Philip  H.  Wicksteed,  —  men  who  must  have  met  him  with 
receptive  and  appreciative  mind.  In  the  work  of  instruc- 
tion it  was  his  custom  to  begin  in  Ethics  with  annotating 
Paley  and  Butler ;  and  where  lay  the  emphasis  of  his  dis- 
sent from  the  one  and  of  approval  of  the  other,  it  is  not 
difficult  to  divine.  For  more  advanced  students  he  wrote 
elaborate  courses,  blending  a  discussion  of  principles  with 
an  account  of  systems  that  stood  for  them ;  in  which  who 
will  may  see  the  incipient  form  of  the  great  Types  of  Ethical 


LONDON  93 

Theory.  In  the  Philosophy  of  Religion  it  is  easy  to  divine 
what  the  instruction  was  from  the  mighty  Study  of  Religion 
it  grew  into.  His  lectures  were  revised  and  revised  so  as 
to  give  due  recognition  to  the  last  discovery  and  the  latest 
thought. 

In  logic  he  did  not  give  himself  the  like  laborious  prep- 
aration. Here  text-books  would  serve  him.  He  used  not 
one  but  many,  —  Hamilton,  Mill,  Mansel,  Bain,  — that  the 
student  from  "  familiarity  with  several  nomenclatures  might 
be  the  slave  of  none."  ^  For  its  great  value  as  discipline  he 
brought  his  classes  to  the  page  of  Aristotle. 

Some  of  his  pupils  tell  with  special  satisfaction  of  read- 
ings with  him  from  the  Greek,  —  mainly,  if  not  wholly,  of 
Plato.  It  was  an  informal  exercise,  and  for  that  reason  the 
more  enjoyed.  They  tell  of  an  accurate  yet  poetic  ren- 
dering, and  a  fine  classical  appreciation. 

His  lectures  were  read  slowly,  so  that  a  student  with 
nimble  fingers  might  take  them  very  nearly  as  given.  His 
manner  was  grave  and  unimpassioned ;  where  great  themes 
are  discussed  before  an  audience  of  four  or  five  the  word 
of  wisdom  may  be  spoken,  but  eloquence  would  look 
quite  foolish  on  the  wing. 

Yet  another  period  of  service  as  a  minister  was  before 
him.  In  1858  Edward  Taggart,  for  thirty  years  the  min- 
ister in  Little  Portland  Street  Chapel,  died.  Little  Portland 
Street  Chapel,  under  his  ministry,  had  stood  for  the  older 
and  more  dogmatic  type  of  Unitarianism ;  and  the  action 
of  the  congregation  at  this  juncture  was  a  matter  of  denom- 
inational surprise.  The  two  men  who  more  than  any  others 
in  England  represented  the  newer  and  more  elastic  views 
were  J.  J.  Tayler  and  Mr.  Martineau ;  and  to  each  the  pul- 
pit was  offered.  Neither,  however,  in  connection  with  col- 
lege duties  was  willing  to  undertake  it  alone ;  and  so  both 
were  called  to   a  joint  pulpit  service.     In    the    terms  of 

^  Charles  Wicksteed. 


94  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

settlement  there  was  the  stipulation  that  there  should  be 
expected  of  them  no  pastoral  labors. 

Little  Portland  Street  Chapel  should  satisfy  the  most 
austere  demands  for  modesty  and  simplicity.  As  one 
measures  it  with  the  eye,  five  hundred  should  fill  it,  and  it 
is  plain  almost  to  rudeness.  When,  however,  one  might 
be  sure  of  finding  Mr.  Tayler  or  Mr.  Martineau  in  the 
pulpit,  there  was  no  question  where  in  London  the  largest 
and  loftiest  word  would  be  spoken  ;  and  those  seeking  this, 
in  indifference  to  any  standard  of  faith,  were  apt  to  find 
their  way  thither.  They  came  from  far,  not  the  many  but 
the  chosen.  Unitarianism,  however,  is  not  a  favored  faith  in 
London,  and  the  great  word  without  popular  accessories 
draws  the  masses  nowhere.  Mr.  Tayler  with  his  great  intel- 
lect and  great  soul  had  yet  a  feeble  voice ;  Mr.  Martineau  had 
voice  enough,  but  in  his  utterance  there  was  no  declamation; 
and  it  required  the  alert  intellect  to  keep  pace  with  him. 
It  was,  however,  a  remarkable  audience.  Not  unnaturally 
the  students  of  the  College  came  to  hear  their  professors ; 
in  one  part  of  the  assembly  sat  Charles  Dickens  ;  in  another 
Frances  Power  Cobbe,  who  found  the  place  with  all  its  bald- 
ness a  fitting  one  "  for  serious  people  to  meet  to  think  in ;  " 
in  yet  another  Sir  Charles  Lyell,  who  spoke  with  bitterness 
of  the  place  where  England  hid  her  greatest  preacher;  and 
withal  there  was  a  very  plentiful  sprinkling  of  those  toiling 
at  the  higher  tasks  of  thought  and  learning. 

This  arrangement  continued  till  1869,  when  Mr.  Tayler 
died.  Mr.  Martineau  succeeded  to  his  place  as  Principal 
of  the  College,  and  at  the  same  time  took  the  pulpit  charge 
alone.  In  the  two  offices  he  continued  till  1872,  when, 
from  the  strain  of  unrelaxing  labor,  his  health  was  begin- 
ning to  give  way;   and  he  laid  down  the  pulpit  burden. 

During  the  sixties  and  seventies  the  busy  pen  toiled  on 
as  heretofore,  and  many  a  page  of  the  National  and  the 
Theological  reviews  he  ennobled  and  adorned.      In   i860 


LONDON  95 

came  the  splendid  paper  on  Nature  and  God,  also  a  search- 
ing review  of  Bain's  Cerebral  Psychology.  In  1862  he 
published  the  tremendous  paper  on  Science,  Nescience,  and 
Faith,  a  challenge  of  certain  aspects  of  the  philosophy  of 
Evolution,  as  presented  in  the  newly  published  First  Prin- 
ciples. In  1863  he  put  forth  a  critique  of  Kenan's  Vie  de 
Jtsiis,  in  which  we  meet  the  first  distinct  avowal  of  his 
affiliation  with  Tubingen.  During  this  and  the  following 
year  he  printed  two  papers  on  Early  Messianic  Ideas, 
which  the  reader  will  find  profit  in  comparing  with  his 
treatment  of  the  same  theme  in  the  Scat  of  Authority. 

In  1866  and  1867  W.  V.  Spencer  of  Boston  brought  out 
two  volumes  of  Mr,  Martineau's  magazine  papers  under 
the  title  of  Essays,  Theological  and  Philosophical.  These 
won,  from  thinkers  of  all  ranks,  a  grateful  recognition. 
The  subject  of  Hymnology  was  ever  near  his  mind ;  and 
in  1874  he  brought  out  another  hymn-book  under  the  title 
of  Hymns  of  Praise  and  Prayer.  His  mind  had  undergone 
many  changes  in  the  thirty-four  years  since  the  last  hymn- 
book  was  published,  and  Hymnology  had  been  enriched  by 
the  writing  of  many  hymns  of  great  value.  The  new  book 
was  the  old  one  revised  to  date  by  excisions  and  additions. 
In  the  English  Unitarian  churches  it  had  mainly  the  old 
one  to  supplant,  which  it  has  very  largely  done,  but  not  en- 
tirely. In  1876  he  published  the  first  series  of  Hours  of 
Thought  on  Sacred  Things,  and  in  1879  the  second  series. 
These  are  collections  of  sermons  of  his  later  years,  not 
stronger  than  those  in  the  volumes  of  Endeavors,  but  riper, 
and  surpassing  them  in  mystic  glow.  In  1882  came  the 
volume  on  Spinoza,  embracing  the  pleasantest  account  of 
his  life  and  the  toughest  analysis  of  his  doctrine. 

It  was  his  biennial  wont  to  open  the  college  year  with 
an  address  to  the  students  and  alumni  and  friends.  The 
address  opening  the  session  of  1874  was  notable  both  for 
itself  and  what  followed  it.     His  subject  was  Religion  as 


96  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

Affected  by  Modern  Materialism  ;  and  his  treatment  of  it 
embraced  a  review  of  certain  evolutionary  doctrines  then 
much  in  vogue.  His  strictures  upon  these  doctrines  were 
weighty,  and  Professor  Tyndall,  knight  ever  ready  to  do 
battle  for  his  faith,  took  up  the  gauntlet.  The  contest, 
though  ruled  by  all  chivalries,  was  inspired  by  all  ardors ; 
and  the  author  and  defender  of  the  Belfast  Address  did 
Truth  inestimable  service  by  provoking  Moderji  Material- 
ism :  its  Attitude  towa^'ds  Theology,  a  rejoinder  that  hon- 
ored and  overwhelmed  him. 

To  follow  his  career  in  close  detail  is  perhaps  not  de- 
sirable. One  day  at  the  College  was  much  like  another; 
the  occasional  address  or  essay  was  but  a  variation  of  a 
familiar  nobleness ;  his  domestic  peace  and  social  intima- 
cies were  too  beautiful  to  be  eventful. 

In  the  main,  his  days  passed  in  quiet  joys  and  ennobling 
labors.  In  1866,  however,  he  became  the  centre  of  a  con- 
tention which  was  earnest,  and  not  unattended  with  ill 
feeling.  The  chair  of  Logic  and  Mental  Philosophy  in 
University  College  was  made  vacant,  and  Mr.  Martineau 
was  put  in  nomination  for  the  place.  The  professorial 
body,  the  senate  of  the  College,  were  unanimous  in  his 
favor;  and  with  their  indorsement  his  name  went  to  the 
Council,  with  whom  was  the  final  decision.  Here  opposi- 
tion was  encountered,  led  by  none  other  than  George  Grote. 

Nobody  questioned  Mr.  Martineau's  ample  attainments ; 
and  no  one  would  more  surely  than  he  have  restricted 
himself  to  his  appointed  tasks,  and  held  aloof  from  his 
lecture-room  all  themes  that  were  irrelevant.  There  are 
names,  however,  that  are  a  red  flag  in  themselves,  and  Mr. 
Martineau's  in  this  issue  was  such.  University  College 
was  founded  on  a  secular  basis ;  Mr.  Martineau  was  a 
theologian,  bearing  a  very  active  part  in  a  theological 
institution ;  he  was  also  a  pronounced  and  influential 
Unitarian.  Neither  nor  both  these  objections  could  satisfy 
pure  reason ;  but  the  latter  alone  was  enough  to  satisfy 


LONDON  97 

a  theological,  the  former  an  anti-theological,  antipathy ; 
and  both  were  here.  Mr.  Martineau's  friends  urged  that 
the  principle  of  secularization  did  not  require  that  a  man 
be  held  disqualified  for  the  position  because  of  his  the- 
ology, but  that  he  should  receive  appointment  without 
regard  to  it;  nay,  that  to  deny  appointment  because  of 
one's  religious  faith  was  to  set  aside  that  principle.  The 
point  was  well  taken  ;  but  Mr.  Grote  wanted  no  theologian, 
and  there  were  others  who  wanted  no  Unitarian,  —  who  felt 
that  Unitarian  influence  in  the  College  was  already  suffi- 
ciently great,  or  who  feared  that  the  appointment  of  a 
Unitarian  so  prominent  as  Mr.  Martineau  would  be  the 
occasion  of  popular  suspicion  from  which  the  College 
would  suffer.  The  debate  was  taken  up  by  the  press,  and 
language  was  used  too  emphatic  to  be  inoffensive.  Some 
of  the  best  men  in  England  were  on  Mr.  Martineau's  side, 
among  them  Mr.  Gladstone.  In  the  Council  the  vote  was 
a  tie,  and  the  issue  was  decided  against  Mr.  Martineau  by 
the  chairman.  In  indignation  at  the  result,  one  of  the 
most  distinguished  professors  in  the  College,  Mr.  De 
Morgan,  threw  up  his  position. 

The  position  of  itself  was  not  one  for  which  Mr.  Marti- 
neau could  have  greatly  cared ;  it  would  have  added  little 
to  his  income  and  nothing  to  his  honor.  The  loss  was 
clearly  with  the  institution  whose  custodians  had  denied  to 
it  his  splendid  powers.  That  the  contest,  however,  gave 
him  a  transitory  pain  there  is  reason  to  believe ;  and  not 
unlikely,  with  him  as  with  so  many  others,  the  keener  re- 
gret was  that  an  institution  so  great  should  have  so  failed 
of  the  nobler  standard. 

A  little  later,  in  1869,  Mr.  Martineau  had  a  good  deal 
to  do  with  the  formation  of  a  Metaphysical  Club  which 
gained  a  wide  celebrity.  The  origin  of  the  Club  is  inter- 
esting. The  plan  seems  originally  to  have  arisen  in  the 
mind  of  Tennyson,  though  it  owed  much  to  the  further- 

7 


98  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

ance  of  Mr.  Knowles,  editor  of  the  Nineteenth  Century}- 
Its  purpose,  as  originally  conceived,  was  to  combat  agnos- 
ticism. Several  had  been  found  willing  to  join  it,  among 
them  Archbishop,  afterwards  Cardinal,  Manning,  when  Mr. 
Martineau  was  invited.  Looking  into  the  plan,  he  de- 
murred. He  was  willing  to  join  a  club  to  combat  agnos- 
ticism, but  it  must  not  exclude  agnostics  whose  doctrines 
were  to  be  combated.  He  would  meet  them  in  a  tourna- 
ment of  thought,  knight  against  knight,  but  on  no  other 
plan  could  the  Club  interest  him. 

This  revision  of  the  plan  seemed  at  first  impracticable. 
As  it  was  mentioned  abroad,  however,  it  met  a  favorable 
response,  and  on  this  basis  the  Club  was  founded.  It  was 
a  society  of  leading  metaphysicians,  theologians,  scientists, 
and  men  of  literary  pursuits,  selected  without  respect  to 
philosophical  or  theological  bias.  Archbishop  Manning 
was  of  it;  also  the  Archbishop  of  York,  and  the  Bishops 
of  Bristol  and  Peterborough.  Professor  Maurice  was  of 
the  number,  and  Dean  Stanley,  likewise  Sir  John  Lubbock, 
William  B.  Carpenter,  Thomas  Huxley,  Professor  Clifford, 
Frederic  Harrison,   with  many  others  of  not  less  celebrity. 

1  Of  this  Club  Mr.  Martineau  wrote  Mr.  Alger,  November  25,  1869:  "  A 
project,  suggested  I  believe  by  Mr.  Tennyson,  has  been  started  here,  of  a  Meta- 
physical Society  for  the  thorough  discussion  of  the  ultimate  grounds  of  in- 
tellectual, moral,  and  religious  belief.  The  scheme  originated  in  a  desire  to 
bring  together  from  different  sides  the  scattered  representatives  of  a  theisti- 
cal  philosophy,  and  present  a  strong  front  of  resistance  to  the  advance  of 
Positivism  and  the  dogmatic  Materialism  of  the  newer  science.  On  being 
asked  to  join,  I  urged  the  absolute  reciprocity  of  inviting  the  heads  of  the 
negative  party  into  the  Society  from  the  very  first,  and  making  the  Society 
unreservedly  one  of  philosophical  search,  for  patient  and  impartial  com- 
parison of  ideas  among  differing  equals.  This  principle  has  been  adopted, 
and  Mill,  Bain,  and  Tyndall  have  been  asked  to  join,  —  with  what  result  I 
have  not  yet  heard.  Already  Tennyson,  Browning,  Archbishop  Manning, 
Ward  [Ultramontane  editor  of  the  Dublin  Revieu^,  Dean  Stanley,  F.  D. 
Maurice,  R.  H.  Hutton,  Sir  John  Lubbock,  Knowles  [author  of  the  King 
Arthur  legend,  and  friend  of  Tennyson],  and,  I  believe,  the  Archbishop  of 
York,  Dean  Mansel,  and  the  Duke  of  Argyll  have  given  in  their  adhesion." 


LONDON  99 

These  representatives  of  most  diverse  schools  of  thought 
became  friendly  and  even  sympathetic.  "  This,"  writes 
Professor  Huxley,  "  was  a  great  surprise.  We  thought  at 
first  it  would  be  a  case  of  Kilkenny  cats.  Hats  and  coats 
would  be  left  in  the  hall  before  the  meeting,  but  there 
would  be  no  wearers  left  after  it  was  over,  to  put  them  on 
again.  Instead  we  came  to  love  each  other  like  brothers. 
We  all  expended  so  much  charity  that  had  it  been  money 
we  should  have  been  bankrupt."  The  same  picturesque 
pen  also  describes  the  society  as  "  that  singularly  rudder- 
less ship,  the  stalwart  oarsmen  of  which  were  mostly  en- 
gaged in  pulling  as  hard  as  they  could  against  one  another, 
and  which  consequently  performed  only  circular  voyages 
all  the  years  of  its  commission." 

The  earliest  meeting  of  the  Club  was  June  2,  1869,  and 
the  last.  May  12,  1880.  After  the  first  year  they  met 
quite  regularly  once  a  month ;  August,  September,  and 
October  being  always  excepted.  A  dinner  was  served  ;  a 
short  paper  was  read,  which  was  then  made  a  bull's-eye 
for  target-practice.  Some  of  the  subjects  are  suggestive. 
Professor  Carpenter  presents  the  Couimon-Settse  View  of 
Causation  ;  Professor  Huxley,  the  Views  of  Hume,  Kant, 
and  Whatcly  npon  the  Logical  Basis  of  the  Immortality  of 
the  Soul ;  also  another  paper  in  which  he  raises  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  Frog  has  a  Soul.  Mr.  Martineau  brings 
inquiry  whether  there  is  an  Axiom  of  Causality.  Mr. 
Harrison  discusses  the  Relativity  of  Knoivledge ;  Mr. 
Froude,  Evidence;  Mr.  Clifford,  the  Scientific  Basis  of 
Morality.  Professor  Huxley  rises  again  to  present  his 
views  as  to  the  Evidence  of  the  Miracle  of  the  Resurrectiofi. 
Mr.  Harrison  and  Cardinal  Manning  both  offer  papers  on 
The  Soul  before  and  after  Death.  Such  are  samples  of 
the  setting  forth  at  this  feast  of  reason. 

Academic  honors  were  slow  in  coming,  but  they  came. 
In  1872  Harvard  University  crowned  him  with  an  LL.D. 


lOO  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

In  1874  the  University  at  Leyden  gave  him  an  S.T.D. 
Somewhat  later  Edinburgh  made  him  a  D.D.  Later  still 
Oxford  honored  him  with  a  D.C.L.  Last  of  all  Dublin 
University  conferred  upon  him  a  Litt.D.  Honors  enough 
surely  to  satisfy  a  reasonable  ambition;  and,  if  late  in 
coming,  they  were  the  more  indisputably  earned. 

In  1872  there  came  to  him  another  testimonial,  w^hich, 
if  not  adding  to  the  laurels  of  the  scholar,  was  most 
gratifying  to  the  man.  At  the  close  of  the  college  session, 
as  he  was  about  leaving  London,  an  interview  was  sought 
with  him,  and,  after  a  little  explanation,  a  cheque  for  5000 
guineas  was  placed  in  his  hand,  with  the  intimation  that 
there  was  more  to  come.  The  sums  that  flowed  in  later 
swelled  the  amount  to  ;^5900.  With  his  approval,  a  por- 
tion of  this  was  devoted  to  the  purchase  of  two  pieces  of 
silver  plate  for  domestic  use.  On  these  was  inscribed  the 
following  memorial: 

PRESENTED 

WITH 

FIVE   THOUSAND   GUINEAS 

TO   THE 

REVEREND   JAMES    MARTINEAU 

BY   A   LARGE   NUMBER    OF 

HIS   ENGLISH   FRIENDS 

AS    A 

MEMORIAL   OF   PERSONAL   AFFECTION 

AND   IN 

GRATEFUL   ACKNOWLEDGMENT   OF    HIS   SERVICES 

IN   THE   MAINTENANCE   OF 

SPIRITUAL   FREEDOM, 

IN   THE   PROMOTION    OF 

CHRISTIAN   TRUTH, 

AND   IN   THE   INCULCATION   OF   THAT 

PURE    MORALITY 

WHICH   IS    THE   FOUNDATION    OF 

PRIVATE   AND   PUBLIC   VIRTUE 

AND   THE   SAFEGUARD   OF 

NATIONAL   LIBERTY. 

June,  1S72. 


LONDON  lOI 

Accompanying  the  gift  was  an  address  from  which  I 
quote  the  following:  "Originating  in  a  desire  that  the 
shortcomings  of  the  past  may  be  repaired,  however  in- 
adequately, in  the  case  of  one  distinguished  example  of 
the  material  injustice  usually  sustained  in  England  by  the 
instructors  of  the  intellect,  and  especially  by  men  who 
become  pioneers  and  leaders  of  thought  and  opinion,  this 
movement  nevertheless  owes  its  force  to  mingled  motives 
of  gratitude,  respect,  and  admiration.  Some  of  the  con- 
tributors belong  to  a  generation  older  than  your  own,  .  .  . 
many  among  them  are  your  contemporaries;  who  have 
striven  hard  to  keep  near  you  in  the  struggle  of  Endeavor 
after  the  Christian  Life,  in  which  you  have  helped  and  led 
them." 

To  this  Mr.  Martineau  replied:  "  You  speak  of  mingled 
motives  of  this  splendid  gift.  So  far  as  it  springs  from 
personal  friendship  and  generous  affection  it  can  bring  me, 
however  I  may  wonder  at  it,  only  the  sincerest  joy.  But 
to  accept  it  as  an  arrears  of  justice  over-due  would  be  to 
charge  a  wrong  upon  the  past  which  I  can  in  no  way  own. 
Far  from  having  any  claim  to  plead,  I  am  conscious  that, 
in  account  of  services  exchanged,  I  am  debtor  to  the 
world,  and  not  the  world  to  me;  and  am  half  ashamed 
to  have  escaped  so  many  of  the  privations  on  which  I 
reckoned  when  I  quitted  a  secular  profession  for  the 
Christian  ministry.  My  deepest  disappointment  has  been 
from  myself  and  not  from  others,  from  whose  hands  I  have 
suffered  no  grievance  I  did  not  deserve,  and  received  kind- 
ness far  beyond  the  measure  of  my  boldest  hopes.  Who- 
ever dedicates  himself  to  bear  witness  to  divine  things  is 
the  least  consistent  of  men,  if  he  does  not  lay  his  account 
for  a  modest  scale  of  outward  life,  and  a  frequent  conflict 
with  resisting  interests  and  opinions.  Such  incidents  of 
wholesome  difficulty  attending  the  study  and  exposition 
of  moral  and  religious  truth  are  an  essential  guarantee  that 


102  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

its  service  shall  be  one  of  disinterested  love."  Wholesome 
words  these,  which  it  may  not  be  in  vain  to  commend  to 
the  whiners  over  the  ingratitude  of  the  world  !  A  little 
later,  on  his  retirement  from  the  Little  Portland  Street 
Chapel,  the  flock  to  whom  he  had  ministered  presented 
him  the  sum  of  ^^"3500,  likewise  a  testimonial  of  "grati- 
tude, respect,  and  admiration." 

The  ebbing  strength,  because  of  which  he  gave  up  the 
pulpit,  did  not  speedily  flood  again;  and  as  the  years 
advanced,  his  friends  became  anxious  respecting  him. 
Still  he  kept  to  his  appointed  tasks,  but  the  old  vigor  and 
spirit  were  not  there.  The  cause  may  have  been  in  part 
within  himself,  but  it  was  more  in  a  shadow  that  was  hover- 
ing near,  and  a  chilling  anxiety  and  sorrow  it  was  casting 
on  his  heart.  The  fact  was  that  the  companion  of  these 
many  years,  the  sympathizer  in  his  struggles,  the  com- 
forter of  his  pains,  and  the  sharer  of  his  joys,  was  fading 
before  him.  At  length,  in  1877,  after  a  lingering  malady, 
she  died. 

After  her  death  health  gradually  came  back  to  him, 
seeming  to  show  that  by  taxing  his  sympathies  she  was 
drawing  him  after  her.  For  eight  years  more  he  held  to 
his  customary  routine.  At  length  eighteen  hundred  and 
eighty-five  had  come ;  the  sands  of  eighty  years  were  run 
down. 

In  full  vigor  of  health  and  intellect,  he  yet  realized  that 
the  octogenarian  is  not  a  young  man ;  the  feeling,  too, 
pleaded  persuasively  within  him  that  the  time  yet  allowed 
him  could  be  none  too  much  to  put  in  order  the  results  of 
his  long  years  of  study.  That  year  brought  out  one  of  the 
greatest  of  his  works,  the  Types  of  Ethical  Theory ;  but 
there  were  yet  other  tasks  that  required  his  undistracted 
attention.  He,  therefore,  signified  to  the  trustees  of  the 
College  that  at  the  end  of  the  college  year  he  should 
resign. 


LONDON  103 

The  announcement  was  not  unexpected,  yet  regret  was 
profound.  For  forty-five  years  he  had  given  the  institu- 
tion the  most  faithful  toil;  it  had  been  uplifted  by  his 
genius;  it  had  become  famous  through  his  fame.  All 
recognized  the  reason  for  his  action,  and,  without  vain 
remonstrance,  yielded  to  a  decision  which  must  be  "  wise 
because  it  was  his."  One  thing  they  would  fain  do :  his 
name,  even  without  his  official  service,  was  valuable ;  they 
would  retain  him  as  their  Principal,  yet  relieve  him  of  all 
toil  and  responsibility,  a  proposition  to  which  he  would 
not  for  a  moment  listen.  He  suffered  himself,  however,  to 
be  made  president  of  the  board  of  directors,  in  which 
capacity  he  served  for  three  years. 

Accordingly,  at  the  close  of  the  college  year,  the  last 
of  the  following  June,  he  laid  down  his  office.  The  stu- 
dents' dinner  was  made  an  occasion  of  which  the  chil- 
dren of  the  young  men  present  will  surely  tell  the  story. 
Various  speeches  were  made,  bearing  testimony  to  Mr. 
Martineau's  long  and  inestimable  service  to  the  College 
and  to  the  faith.  A  letter  was  handed  him,  signed  by  a 
large  number  of  his  former  pupils,  testifying  their  gratitude 
and  affection.  As  is  not  known  to  all,  there  is  a  consider- 
able Unitarian  body  in  Hungary  with  an  Episcopal  organi- 
zation. From  this  came  a  most  appreciative  address, 
signed  by  their  bishop.  In  it  was  this  touching  sentence  : 
"  Your  greatness  is  great  because  you  were  great  in  little 
things."  He  also  received  an  address  from  several  former 
students  from  Hungary  who  had  been  in  attendance  at  the 
College. 

The  address  of  Mr.  Martineau  on  this  occasion,  evidently 
impromptu,  was  one  of  great  tenderness  and  beauty.  He 
spoke  humorously  of  his  long  connection  with  the  College ; 
he  went  back  to  his  own  education  and  marked  the  many 
changes  that  the  years  had  wrought;  he  compared  the 
earlier  with  the  more  modern  methods  of  education,  in  a 


104  JAMES    MARTINEAU 

vein  of  smiling  disapproval  of  some  aspects  of  latter-day 
improvement.  At  length  he  got  to  himself,  and  thus 
poured  out  his  heart:  — 

"  Though  I  speak  no  more  within  the  old  lecture  halls,  I 
carry  away  with  me  a  garland  of  hope  that  will  never  fade ; 
and  when  I  count  the  group  which  I  trust  to  rejoin,  —  not 
of  parents,  brethren,  children  only,  but  the  guides  and 
quickeners  of  a  later  spiritual  life ;  Henry  Turner,  whose 
death  was  my  conversion,  and  sent  me  into  the  Christian 
ministry;  my  fellow  students,  Franklin  Haworth,  John 
Hugh  Worthington,  Francis  Darbishire,  bound  to  me  in 
common  vows  of  duty  and  devotion ;  the  venerated  John 
Kenrick,  who  alone  of  my  teachers  lived  on  into  my  ma- 
turest  reverence ;  Samuel  Dunkinfield  Darbishire,  whose 
Grecian  calm,  like  a  lake  sleeping  on  a  volcanic  bed, 
covered  the  ignes  S7ippositos  oi  a  noble  enthusiasm;  my 
predecessor,  John  James  Tayler,  in  whom  the  amplest 
learning  was  steeped  in  purest  sympathy,  and  held  in  de- 
vout simplicity ;  with  others  no  less  congenially  present 
in  that  sacred  light ;  —  death  softens  the  shadows  of  its 
partings  here,  and  meets  me  with  a  mild  countenance 
of  welcome. 

"  But  meanwhile,  I  have  not  yet  quite  done  with  the 
world,  or  lost  one  jot  of  my  interest  in  its  persons  and 
affairs.  Nor  do  I  wish  to  turn  the  remainder  of  my  days 
into  a  siesta  or  a  holiday.  That,  indeed,  would  be  but  a 
graceless  return  for  immunity  from  the  infirmities  of  age ; 
the  strength  unspent  it  would  be  unfaithful  to  leave  idle  or 
unused.  Some  feeling  of  this  kind,  at  least,  it  is  that  com- 
mends to  me  Cicero's  advice,  Resistendum  est  sctiectnti,  — • 
resist  it,  that  is,  not  with  rebel  pride  as  against  a  wrong, 
but  with  delayed  acceptance  of  a  privilege.  Welcome  the 
disability  of  age,  when  come  it  must,  but  do  not  invite  it 
by  a  lazy  will." 

To  the  Consistory  of  Hungarian  Unitarians  he  wrote  a 


LONDON  105 

touching  reply.  Speaking  of  the  profound  impression 
made  by  their  address  upon  the  audience,  he  goes  on  to 
say:  "If  this  was  the  feeling  of  an  audience  personally 
unconcerned,  how  much  more  deeply  moved  must  I  have 
been,  to  whom  your  words  of  tender  greeting  and  benedic- 
tion were  addressed.  I  thank  you  for  them  with  all  the 
fervor  of  a  heart  which  age  has  not  yet  chilled,  and  with 
the  surprise  of  one  who  has  earned  no  such  distinguished 
recognition  at  your  hands. 

"  True  it  is  that  from  youth  the  history  of  your  venerable 
Church  has  attracted  me  with  all  the  interest  of  romance, 
and  served  as  a  favorite  example  of  reverent  freedom  and 
heroic  conscience,  upheld  and  blended  in  the  love  of  God. 
But  in  thus  directing  my  admiring  gaze  to  the  far  East  of 
Europe,  little  did  I  dream  that  my  look  thitherward  would 
ever  be  returned,  and  that  you  would  find  out  and  meet 
the  quiet  eye  that  wondered  at  your  past  and  watched 
your  present  life. 

"  It  is  without  anxiety,  therefore,  that  I  quit  the  stress  of 
life  and  turn  to  the  few  possibilities  that  await  my  finish- 
ing hand.  That  they  are  small  and  final  brings  me  no 
sadness.  The  merest  remnants  of  the  '  Great  Taskmaster's  ' 
service  are  sacred,  like  the  rest,  and  may  still  be  wrought 
out  in  love  and  prayer." 

To  the  group  of  Hungarian  students  he  wrote  :  "Towards 
all  other  doctrines  of  the  schools  I  have  honestly  tried 
to  maintain  the  expositor's  attitude  of  impartial  sus- 
pense, till  a  position  has  been  gained  for  final,  critical 
judgment.  But  one  thing  I  have  deemed  it  imperative 
to  assume  and  hold  exempt  from  doubt,  viz.,  —  that  Truth 
is  to  be  found,  and  that  the  instinctive  prayer  of  the  human 
soul  for  vision  is  not  itself  the  only  gleam  in  an  Eternal 
darkness.  Intellect  itself  would  be  an  illusion,  unless  the 
faculty  to  seek  were  the  pledge  and  measure  of  the 
faculty  to  learn,  and  in  the  catechism  of  the   Reason  no 


I06  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

question  stood  without  an  answer.  .  .  .  The  faith  which, 
as  prior  to  all  reasoning,  no  reasoning  can  impair,  is  the 
condition  of  all  intellectual  enthusiasm.  .  .  . 

"  What  can  I  add  but  an  old  man's  blessing?  My  sym- 
pathy is  with  you  all ;  your  callings  are  without  exception 
worthy  and  noble ;  though  of  deepest  interest  to  me,  from 
personal  experience,  is  the  mission  of  those  who  bear  the 
message  of  Christ  to  men.  His  faith,  his  love,  his  self- 
sacrifice,  his  life  eternal,  are  to  me  the  sanctifying  crown  of 
all  philosophy,  the  secret  of  union  with  God  for  the  indi- 
vidual soul,  and  the  hope  of  redemption  from  the  sins  and 
sorrows  of  mankind.  My  race  is  nearly  run ;  the  fire 
given  me  to  bear  flickers  between  dark  and  light ;  but  if, 
ere  its  last  spark  drops  into  the  stream,  it  should  have 
sufficed  to  kindle  any  torch  of  yours,  and  send  it  aglow 
through  its  appointed  stage,  the  prayer  of  my  heart  will  be 
fulfilled,  though  my  name  should  but  touch  the  water  with 
that  momentary  trace  to  be  seen  no  more." 

Thus  answering  applause  with  benediction,  he  laid  down 
his  academic  toils. 


CHAPTER  VII 

LATER   PUBLICATIONS;     A   REMARKABLE  TESTIMONIAL 

We  have  noticed,  as  our  narrative  has  brought  us  to  them, 
his  various  books  :  the  Rationale  of  Religious  Inquiry,  his 
hymn-books,  the  Endeavors  after  the  Christian  Life,  the 
three  collections  of  essays  brought  out  by  American  pub- 
lishers, the  two  volumes  of  Hours  of  Thought  on  Sacred 
Things,  the  Study  of  Spinoza.  These  in  their  appearance 
belong  to  the  period  of  his  activity,  — all  noble  and  useful, 
yet  none  except  the  Spinoza  representing  long-sustained 
and  elaborate  work.  They  were  fruits  wanting  nothing  of 
ripeness,  but  dropped  from  the  tree  in  advance  of  the  har- 
vest. With  these  alone  he  had  been  known  abroad  as  the 
noblest  of  preachers,  the  most  studious  of  hymnologists, 
the  most  incisive  of  critics ;  but,  save  within  the  favored 
circle  of  his  immediate  acquaintance,  he  had  not  been 
known  for  the  vast  range  of  his  scholarship  and  his  great 
powers  of  thought.  The  harvest  through  which  these 
were  to  be  made  known,  was  for  the  period  of  his  retire- 
ment. It  began  with  the  publication  of  the  Types  of 
EtJiical  Theory,  which  was  in  1885,  and  very  nearly  syn- 
chronous with  his  sundering  of  his  college  relations. 

The  work  was  brought  out  by  the  Clarendon  Press  in 
two  heavy  volumes,  and  at  once  drew  attention  as  a  great 
contribution  to  ethical  thought.  Considered  not  as  a  sys- 
tem but  with  reference  to  its  scholarship  and  range,  the 
century  has  hardly  produced  another  ethical  treatise  that 
is  its  equivalent.     As  a  preparation  for  dealing  with  the 


I08  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

great  ethical  problems,  there  is  probably  no  better  work 
in  the  English  tongue  than  this,  and  its  publication  placed 
him  in  the  front  rank  of  moral  philosophers. 

It  is  the  work  of  many  years ;  in  the  main  it  had  been 
proved  in  the  college  lecture-room,  and  that  year  after 
year, —  its  judgments  tested,  its  learning  enriched,  its 
statements  chastened.  While  its  logic  is  the  severest,  yet 
on  every  page  it  glows  with  ethical  enthusiasm.  Then  its 
scope !  Of  course  it  presents  Dr.  Martineau's  own  ethical 
doctrine;  but  this  in  relation  with  many  other  doctrines, 
and  all  in  one  vast  organism  of  thought.  His  primary 
classification  shows  ethical  systems  to  take  their  origin 
from  the  study  of  the  universe  or  from  the  study  of  man. 
He  first  deals  with  those  drawn  from  the  study  of  the  uni- 
verse. These  he  distinguishes  as  Physical  or  Metaphysical, 
according  as  they  build  upon  the  outward  and  phenomenal 
aspect  of  the  universe  or  the  metaphysical  and  real.  Of 
the  former,  or  Physical  type  of  doctrine,  he  finds  a  con- 
sistent representative  in  Auguste  Comte,  and  devotes  to 
him  a  searching  and  copious  page.  The  latter,  or  Meta- 
physical type,  he  finds  divided  into  two  branches,  accord- 
ing as  man  is  conceived  as  a  pre-existent  entity,  or  as  a 
modal  presentation  of  the  Eternal  Essence  and  Only 
Reality.  The  first  of  these  he  distinguishes  as  Transcen- 
dental, the  second  as  Immanential.  The  Transcendental 
type  of  doctrine,  Plato  by  his  genius  has  for  all  time 
stamped  as  his  own ;  and  to  his  teaching  Dr.  Martineau 
devotes  an  exhaustive  exposition.  The  Immanential,  of 
course,  takes  us  to  Spinoza.  Spinoza's  roots,  however, 
are  in  the  movement  of  thought  he  brought  to  a  conclu- 
sion, and  so  the  better  to  exhibit  him  the  great  Cartesians 
are  severally  reviewed.  This  section  is  not  easy  reading, 
but  he  who  masters  it  has  made  his  own,  not  only  the 
ethical  outcome  of  the  doctrine,  but  the  cardinal  features 
of  the  Cartesian  philosophy. 


LATER  PUBLICATIONS  ;    A  REMARKABLE  TESTIMONIAL     IO9 

To  these  types  of  doctrine,  the  Physical  and  the  Meta- 
physical, the  first  volume  is  devoted.  Its  aim  is  to  show 
that,  making  the  point  of  departure  some  aspect  of  the 
universe,  no  satisfactory  ethic  can  be  won. 

With  the  second  volume  he  changes  his  point  of  depart- 
ure ;  instead  of  an  aspect  of  the  universe  he  begins  with  the 
study  of  man  ;  and  here  we  are  introduced  to  a  system  of 
intuitive  doctrine  which  is  Mr.  Martineau's  own.  Of  the 
wealth  of  thought  and  the  sustained  eloquence  of  this  sec- 
tion of  his  work  it  were  vain  to  attempt  to  tell.  It  is  not 
merely  a  thinker's  conclusion ;  it  is  a  prophet's  burden. 
Completing  his  exposition,  he  passes  critically  upon  mod- 
ern systems  of  Hedonistic  and  Utilitarian  doctrine,  espe- 
cially as  set  forth  by  Bentham  and  Mill  and  Spencer;  and 
these  great  thinkers  were  perhaps  never  brought  to  a  more 
searching  arraignment.  These,  too,  take  their  departure 
from  man ;  but  instead  of  recognizing  in  the  "  springs  of 
action "  a  guiding  principle,  as  Conscience,  they  put  all 
these  "  springs  "  under  the  rule  of  one  dominant  end,  which 
is  Pleasure  or  Utility.  His  doctrine  is  strictly  Psychologi- 
cal, tJieirs  he  distinguishes  as  Hetero-psychological ;  and 
in  his  struggle  with  them  he  fights  the  good  fight  for 
the  Sovereign  whose  voice  he  hears  within  him.  But 
the  Hedonistic  and  Utilitarian  are  not  the  only  forms  of 
Hetero-psychological  doctrine ;  there  is  the  Dianoetic 
doctrine  of  Cudworth  and  Clarke  and  Price,  and  the 
^Esthetic  doctrine  of  Shaftesbury  and  Hutcheson ;  and  to 
these  he  devotes  the  last  quarter  of  the  volume.  Such  is 
the  scope  of  this  great  work.  In  this  vast  tract  of  dis- 
cussion there  is  hardly  an  important  phase  of  ethical 
theory,  whether  of  the  ancient  schools  or  the  modern  ones, 
if  we  may  except  the  Hegelian,  which  is  not  exhibited 
either  directly  or  by  implication.  To  know  this  work  is 
to  know  ethical  philosophy,  as  it  can  be  learned  probably 
from  no  other  single  treatise. 


no  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

The  preface  to  this  work  has  attracted  special  interest 
for  a  passage  or  two  of  mental  history  which  it  contains, 
and  in  which  the  general  bearing  of  the  work  is  incidentally 
shown,  "  When,"  says  he,  "  I  first  woke  up,  before  and 
during  my  College  life,  to  the  interest  of  moral  and  meta- 
physical speculations,  I  carried  into  them,  from  previous 
training  for  the  profession  of  civil  engineer,  a  store  of  ex- 
clusively scientific  conceptions,  rendered  familiar  in  the 
elementary  study  of  mathematics,  mechanics,  and  chem- 
istry. Small  as  it  was,  it  was  my  all,  and  necessarily  dic- 
tated the  only  rules  of  judgment  which  I  could  apply.  I 
had  nothing  to  take  with  me  into  logical  and  ethical  prob- 
lems but  the  maxims  and  postulates  of  physical  knowledge; 
and  as  the  instructions  of  the  philosophical  classroom,  ex- 
cellent of  their  kind,  moved  strictly  within  the  same  limits, 
I  was  inevitably  shut  up  in  the  habit  of  interpreting  the 
human  phenomena  by  the  analogy  of  external  nature. 
Steeped  in  the  *  empirical '  and  '  necessarian '  mode  of 
thought,  I  served  out  successive  terms  of  willing  captivity 
to  Locke  and  Hartley,  to  Collins,  Edwards,  and  Priestley, 
to  Bentham  and  James  Mill;  and  though  at  times  I  was 
driven  to  disaffection  by  the  dogmatism  and  acrid  humours 
of  the  last  two  of  these  philosophers,  my  allegiance 
was  restored  and  brightened  by  literary  and  personal 
relations  with  the  younger  Mill.  His  vast  knowledge,  his 
intellectual  conscientiousness,  his  analytical  skill,  his  sin- 
cere humanity,  presented  the  excellences  of  his  school  in 
so  finished  a  form  as  to  proclaim  him  its  undisputed  cory- 
phaeus, and  reanimate  the  confidence  of  its  disciples." 

A  little  further  on  he  writes :  "  It  was  the  irresistible 
pleading  of  the  moral  consciousness  which  first  drove  me 
to  rebel  against  the  limits  of  the  merely  scientific  concep- 
tion. It  became  incredible  to  me  that  nothing  was  pos- 
sible except  the  actual ;  and  the  naturalistic  uniformity 
could  no  longer  escape  some  breach  in  its  closed  barrier 


LATER  PUBLICATIONS  ;    A  REMARIL\BLE  TESTIMONIAL     1 1 1 

to  make  room  for  the  ethical  alternative.  The  secret  mis- 
givings which  I  had  always  felt  at  either  discarding  or 
perverting  the  terms  which  constitute  the  vocabulary  of 
character  —  '  responsibility,'  '  guilt,'  '  merit,'  *  duty  '  — 
came  to  a  head,  and  insisted  upon  speaking  out  and 
being  heard ;  and  to  their  reiterated  question,  *  Is  there 
then  no  ought  to  be  other  than  zuhat  is?'  I  found  the 
negative  answer  of  Diderot  intolerable,  and  all  other 
answer  impossible.  This  involved  a  surrender  of  deter- 
minism, and  a  revision  of  the  doctrine  of  causation :  or 
rather,  I  should  say,  a  recall  of  the  outlawed  causes  from 
their  banishment  and  degradation  to  the  rank  of  antece- 
dents ;  and  constituted  therefore  a  retrograde  movement 
on  the  line  of  Comte's  law,  back  from  physics  to  meta- 
physics; terminating  in  the  definition  that  a  cause  is  that 
which  determines  the  indeterminate."  The  full  signifi- 
cance of  this  transition  even  these  two  great  volumes  are 
not  enough  to  show. 

In  his  letter  to  the  Consistory  of  Hungarian  Unitarians,  he 
spoke  of  the  "  small  and  final  "  "  possibilities  "  that  awaited 
his  "  finishing  hand."  Can  it  be  possible  that  in  these 
terms  he  refers  to  the  Study  of  Religion  ?  This  was  the 
next  work,  and  appeared  in  two  volumes  in  1888.  It  was 
welcomed  by  leaders  of  all  schools  of  religious  thought  as 
one  of  the  mightiest  defences  of  fundamental  truth.  As 
the  Types  of  Ethical  Theory  brought  him  to  a  leading 
place  among  Moral  Philosophers,  so  this  placed  him  in 
the  foremost  rank  of  Philosophers  of  Religion.  In  the 
main,  it  is  laborious  reading;  there  are  portions  of  it  over 
which  even  the  trained  student  must  linger,  and  sometimes 
long.  The  statement  lacks  nothing  of  clearness  ;  illustra- 
tion is  felicitous;  but  the  severities  of  style,  the  profound 
analyses,  the  deep  insights,  the  vast  marshalling  of  knowl- 
edge, impose  exactions  which  only  the  alert  and  patient 
intellect  can  meet. 


112  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

To  give  a  detailed  account  of  the  work  in  a  notice  so 
brief  is,  of  course,  impossible.  It  traverses  the  great 
themes  with  which  the  Philosophy  of  Religion  must  deal, 
—  Knowledge,  Cause,  the  Intellectual  and  Moral  Aspects 
of  the  Universe,  Personality,  Pantheism,  Freedom,  Immor- 
tality, —  with  a  scope  too  large  and  a  presentation  too 
deep  for  brief  and  intelligible  summary.  There  is,  how- 
ever, a  brief  section  of  the  work  in  which  the  spirit  and 
general  philosophy  of  the  whole  are  compressed,  and 
from  which  a  few  quotations  may  be  made ;  and  that  is 
the  invaluable  Introduction,  by  common  consent  one  of 
the  most  eloquent  passages  of  all  his  writings. 

He  begins  by  defining  Religion  as  "  belief  in  an  Ever- 
living  God,  that  is,  a  Divine  Mind  and  Will  ruling  the 
Universe  and  holding  Moral  relations  with  mankind." 
It  is,  he  tells  us,  "  at  once  a  mode  of  thought  and  a  mode 
of  feeling;  nor  does  it  matter  to  their  indissoluble  union 
which  of  the  two  you  put  into  the  prior  place ;  whether 
you  trust  first  the  instinct  of  intuitive  reverence,  and  see 
the  reality  of  God  emerge  as  its  postulate ;  or  whether, 
having  intellectually  judged  that  He  is  there,  you  sur- 
render yourself  to  the  awe  and  love  of  that  infinite  pres- 
ence. These  intense  affections,  rich  in  elements  of  wonder, 
admiration,  reverence,  culminate  in  worship ;  and,  break- 
ing thus  into  visible  expression,  reveal  to  others  the 
invisible  faith  to  which  they  inseparably  belong.  It  is 
only  our  artificial  analysis  that  separates  the  two,  and 
insists  on  calling  the  intellectual  side  of  the  fact  a  tJieologyy 
the  afifectional  a  religiony  ^ 

An  Ever-living  God,  a  Divine  Mind  and  Will !  a  Personal 
Creator  and  Ruler  !  —  for  the  validity  of  this  conception, 
and  its  supreme  significance  in  any  religion  worthy  the 
name,  he  rises  to  the  great  argument. 

The  conception  is  an  old  one,  it  is  the  widely  prevalent 

^  P-3- 


LATER  PUBLICATIONS  ;    A  REMARKABLE   TESTIMONIAL     II 3 

one ;  but  it  has  been  fiercely  challenged  in  recent  years, 
and  its  absolute  importance  to  religion  has  been  called  in 
question  by  men  held  great  and  wise.  Among  these  is  J. 
R.  Seeley,  who  in  his  Natural  Religion,  "  waters  "  Religion 
down  to  "  habitual  and  permanent  admiration!'  Consist- 
ently with  this  definition  he  makes  devotion  to  art  or 
science  or  letters  or  morals  a  form  of  Religion,  though  in 
the  outlook  upon  the  universe  there  be  recognized  only 
the  "sequences"  and  "coexistences"  of  phenomena,  no 
Causal  Intelligence  being  discerned  within  them  or  behind 
them.  This  devotion  he  dignifies  with  the  name  of  Theism. 
To  a  man  of  science  to  whom,  as  to  Comte  and  Laplace, 
the  "  cosmos  is  all  in  all,"  God  is  a  "  synonym  for  nature  ;  " 
and,  contemplating  it,  he  is  as  if  in  the  "  presence  of  an  in- 
finite and  eternal  being."  This  extraordinary  "  watering 
down,"  Dr.  Martineau  meets  early  in  his  page,  and  honors 
with  reply :  "  There  might  be  some  excuse  for  this  para- 
doxical statement,  if  its  author  were  dealing  with  the 
Poets  personification  of  nature  as  an  infinite  organism, 
looking  with  deepest  expression  into  the  human  soul;  for 
the  conception  does  really,  for  the  moment,  both  unify 
and  animate  the  world,  and  brighten  up  its  face  as  with  a 
flash  of  inner  meaning  from  beneath  its  form;  and,  while 
this  vision  lasts,  there  is  a  transient  immanence  of  mind 
with  which  the  seer  may  commune.  But,  the  assertion  is 
expressly  made  of  that  lowest  view  of  nature  which,  like 
Comte's,  rids  the  observer  of  all  ideas  of  causality  or 
power,  and  resolves  the  All  into  phenomena,  related  only 
in  time  and  place,  in  resemblance  and  difference,  and 
simply  grouped  into  sets  under  these  heads.  The  deifica- 
tion of  such  bundles  of  facts  [and  'laws  '  are  nothing  else], 
the  transference  of  the  name  God  to  the  sum  of  them, 
the  recognition  of  their  study  as  Theism,  involve  a  deg- 
radation of  language  and  a  confusion  of  thought,  which 
are  truly  surprising  in  the  distinguished  author  of '  Natural 

8 


114  JAMES    MARTINEAU 

Religion.'  The  subversion  of  established  meanings  for 
familiar  terms  is  already  begun  in  the  very  title  of  his 
book:  by  'Natural  Religion'  has  hitherto  been  under- 
stood '  what  may  be  known  of  the  invisible  God  through  the 
things  whicJi  he  has  made,  even  his  everlasting  power  and 
divinity ;  '  but  here  it  means,  instead  of  the  teachings  of 
nature  about  God,  the  substitution  of  nature  for  God,  the 
actual  dispensing  from  thought  of  everything  but  nature, 
and  the  attempt  to  concentrate  upon  it  the  affections 
previously  reserved  for  him :  in  other  words,  nature-wor- 
ship in  place  of  divine  worship!'  ^ 

Mr.  Seeley's  mind  is  drawn  to  the  familiar  alternative  of 
miracle  and  law,  with  a  decided  bias  in  favor  of  the  latter, 
as  the  exponent  of  the  ultimate  truth  of  the  universe ;  and 
he  seems  to  feel,  as  careless  thinkers  have  often  done,  that 
where  all  is  ordered  there  can  be  no  supernatural.  To 
this  Dr.  Martineau  makes  answer:  "If  we  were  simply 
classifying  phenomena,  certainly  the  author's  bifurcate 
division  would  hold  good  :  they  must  come  about  either 
conformably,  or  inconformably,  with  some  given  rule :  they 
would  be  either  natural,  or  extra-natural :  the  affirmation 
of  the  one  would  be  the  negation  of  the  other.  But  the 
question  whether  '  Nature  '  [in  the  sense  oi  all  that  happens'] 
is  indeed  the  totality  of  existence,  is  a  question  not  between 
one  mode  of  happening  and  another,  but  between  all  hap- 
penings and  the  never-happening  whence  they  come,  be- 
tween the  time  event  and  its  eternal  ground,  between  the 
phenomenal  sum,  from  end  to  end,  and  the  non-phenom- 
enal presence  without  which  they  cannot  emerge  into 
thought  at  all.  Change  has  no  meaning,  and  no  possibil- 
ity, but  in  relation  to  the  permanent,  which  is  its  prior 
condition ;  and  pile  up  as  you  may  your  *  co-existent  and 
successive'  mutabilities,  that  patient  eternal  abides  behind, 
and  receives  an  everlasting  witness   from    them,  whether 

1  pp.  s-6. 


LATER  PUBLICATIONS  ;    A  REMARKABLE  TESTIMONIAL     1 1  5 

heeded  or  unguessed.  Here  it  is,  in  this  intellectual  pre- 
supposition of  any  emerging  world,  this  prior  condition  of 
the  natural,  that  we  meet  a  persistent  '  supernatural,'  in  the 
idea  of  which  the  very  essence  of  the  religious  problem 
lies,  and  without  reference  to  which  the  order  of  nature 
can  tell  us  of  nothing  but  itself;  for  God  is  not  there. 
Nature  therefore  can  never  swallow  up  the  supernatural, 
any  more  than  time  can  swallow  up  eternity :  they  subsist 
and  are  intelligible  only  together;  and  nothing  can  be 
more  mistaken  than  to  treat  them  as  mutually  exclu- 
sive. .  .  .  But  though  there  is  no  antagonism  between 
them,  antithesis  there  certainly  is;  and  nothing  can  be 
more  misleading  than  to  say  that '  God  is  merely  a  synonym 
for  nature.'  The  attributes  of  nature  are  birth,  growth, 
and  death ;  God  can  never  begin  or  cease  to  be :  nature 
is  an  aggregate  of  effects ;  God  is  the  universal  cause : 
nature  is  an  assemblage  of  objects ;  God  is  the  infinite 
Subject  of  which  they  are  the  expression :  nature  is  the 
organism  of  intelligibles ;  God  is  the  eternal  intellect  itself. 
Cut  these  pairs  asunder ;  take  away  the  unchangeable,  the 
causal,  the  manifesting  Subject,  the  originating  Thought ; 
and  what  is  left  is  indeed  '  Nature,'  but,  thus  bereft  and 
alone,  is  the  negation  and  not  the  '  synonym  '  of  God."  ^ 

It  is  the  manifest  aim  of  Natural  Religion,  by  broaden- 
ing the  conception  of  Religion,  to  mitigate  its  contentions. 
By  embracing  art  and  science  within  its  demesne  the  author 
would  bring  an  end  to  the  antagonism  between  it  and  them. 
This  aspect  of  the  book  draws  from  Dr.  Martineau  the  fol- 
lowing eloquent  passage  :  "  Heartily  as  I  would  welcome  the 
enthusiasms  for  knowledge  and  for  art,  as  well  as  for  Right, 
into  the  circle  of  religious  affinities,  and  recognize  in  their 
noblest  representatives  an  inspiration  akin  to  that  of  genu- 
ine piety  ;  emphatically  therefore  as  I  deny  that  there  is 
any  uncongeniality  between  the  modern  culture  and  the 

1  pp.  7-8- 


Il6  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

ancient  sanctities,  I  yet  must  hold  that,  in  the  order  of  de- 
pendence, these  minor  forms  of  devoutness  hang  upon  the 
major;  and  that  if  we  are  to  give  them  a  home  in  the 
widened  category  of  ReHgion,  it  must  be  as  children  of 
the  house  and  not  as  wielding  its  supreme  authority. 
Their  functions  are  sacred,  because  concerned  with  a  uni- 
verse already  consecrate  by  a  Divine  presence,  gleaming 
through  all  its  order  and  loveliness :  suppose  its  inner  mean- 
ing gone,  let  its  truth  be  only  useful  and  its  beauty  only 
pleasant,  and  would  any  lofty  genius  be  taken  captive  by 
them,  and  bow  before  them?  Rightly  enough  are  the  man 
of  science  and  the  true  artist  called  ministering  priests  of 
nature :  but  this  they  could  not  be,  unless  nature  were  a 
temple  filled  with  God.  If  there  be  no  sanctuary  and  no 
Shekinah  there,  there  is  no  inner  meaning  for  them  to  inter- 
pret ;  and  the  account  of  it  is  complete  in  the  measure  of  its 
proportions  and  the  inventory  of  its  contents.  If  you  place 
me  face  to  face,  not  with  an  infinite  hving  spirit,  but  only 
with  what  is  called  '  the  Great  Necessity^  what  enthusiasm 
do  you  expect  the  vision  to  excite?  Can  there  be  a  more 
paralyzing  spectacle?  and  shall  I  flingmyself  with  passion- 
ate devotion  into  the  arms  of  that  ghastly  physical  giant? 
It  is  impossible :  homage  to  an  automaton-universe  is  no 
better  than  mummy-worship  would  be  to  one  who  has 
known  what  it  is  to  love  and  trust,  and  embrace  the  living 
friend.  In  short,  a  human  soul  so  placed  would  itself  be 
higher  than  aught  it  knows  within  th .  immensity,  and 
could  worship  nothing  there  without  idolatry."  ^ 

Thus  the  wonderful  page  goes  on,  —  philosophy  enrap- 
tured with  the  poet's  vision  and  touched  by  the  prophet's 
fire.  Towards  the  close  he  consecrates  the  universe  in 
these  words :  "  The  rule  of  right,  the  symmetries  of  char- 
acter, the  requirements  of  perfection,  are  no  provincialisms 
of  this  planet:    they  are   known  among  the  stars:    they 

1    pp.   II-I2. 


LATER  PUBLICATIONS  ;    A  REMARKABLE  TESTIMONIAL     11/ 

reign  beyond  Orion  and  the  Southern  Cross :  they  are 
wherever  the  universal  Spirit  is  ;  and  no  subject  mind, 
though  it  fly  on  one  track  for  ever,  can  escape  beyond 
their  bounds.  Just  as  the  arrival  of  light  from  deeps  that 
extinguish  parallax  bears  witness  to  the  same  ether  there 
that  vibrates  here,  and  its  spectrum  reports  that  one  chem- 
istry spans  the  interval,  so  does  the  law  of  righteousness 
spring  from  its  earthly  base  and  embrace  the  empire  of 
the  heavens,  the  moment  it  becomes  a  communion  between 
the  heart  of  man  and  the  life  of  God."  ^ 

With  the  publication  of  this  great  work  it  was  generally 
supposed  that  his  labors  were  ended.  He  was  eighty-three 
years  of  age,  — time,  as  we  ordinarily  think,  not  to  "  take 
in  sail,"  but  to  cast  anchor  in  the  harbor.  Astonishment 
was  wide  when  two  years  later  appeared  the  Seat  of  Author- 
ity in  Religion.  Several  years  before  he  had  published  a 
series  of  theological  papers  in  the  Old  and  New,  a  maga- 
zine of  noble  promise  that  died  ere  the  fulfilment  of  its 
expectation ;  and  these  we  were  pleased  to  meet  again  in 
the  earlier  section  of  the  volume.  The  remaining  portion, 
however,  more  than  five  hundred  ample  pages,  had  been 
w'ritten  since  the  publication  of  the  Study. 

That  in  range  of  knowledge,  keenness  of  insight,  vigor 
of  statement  or  nobility  of  feeling,  this  volume  falls  behind 
its  predecessors,  no  competent  critic  could  maintain.  It 
traverses  themes,  however,  in  dealing  with  which  the  aver- 
age Christian  mind  is  more  sensitive,  —  the  nature  of 
Religious  Authority,  the  Authority  of  Scripture,  the  Gen- 
uineness of  the  Canon,  the  Person  and  Work  of  Jesus, 
Union  with  God  ;  and  in  the  treatment  there  is  a  peremp- 
tory challenge  of  prevalent  modes  of  thought.  Not  un- 
naturally, therefore,  it  brought  upon  him  a  tempest  of 
criticism,  though  for  most  part  of  the  feebler  sort.  In 
reading  it  over  it  is  astonishing  to  find  how  prevaihngly  it 

1  p.  26. 


Il8  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

is   partisan   depreciation  rather  than  a  valiant   grappHng 
with  his  teachings. 

Though  written  so  late  in  life,  it  shows  his  intellect  at 
full  vigor;  it  has  the  freshness  of  new  enterprise.  Of  all 
his  works  it  is  the  most  variously  learned,  and  of  no  other 
is  the  style  so  popular. 

Another  important  task  was  before  him :  soon  after  the 
publication  of  the  Seat  of  Authority  he  set  about  bringing 
together  a  selection  of  his  literary  papers.  These  appeared 
in  four  goodly  volumes,  under  the  title  of  Essays,  Reviews, 
and  Addresses.  Next  came  a  volume  of  Home  Prayers,  his 
Pax  Vobiscuin. 

We  have  passed  an  incident  which  it  were  hardly  par- 
donable not  to  narrate.  We  have  noticed  very  significant 
testimonials  to  his  worth  and  service ;  here  is  another  testi- 
monial of  which  it  were  not  easy  to  find  a  parallel.  Soon 
after  the  appearance  of  the  Study  of  Religion  a  movement 
was  set  on  foot,  under  the  guidance  of  Prof.  William 
Knight  of  the  University  of  St.  Andrews,  to  greet  him 
on  his  eighty-third  birthday  with  an  appropriate  tribute. 
The  form  conceived  was  that  of  an  address,  signed  by  lead- 
ing scholars  and  thinkers  of  Europe  and  America,  without 
distinction  of  sect  or  party.  The  time  was  short,  and  so 
the  intent  was  not  realized  in  the  fulness  of  its  scope ;  yet 
was  the  enterprise  a  most  notable  success.  The  Address, 
drawn  up  and  sent  to  various  friends  for  criticism,  received 
its  final  revision  at  the  hand  of  Benjamin  Jowett.  After 
the  introductory  paragraph  it  went  on  to  say:  "We  thank 
you  for  the  help  which  you  have  given  to  those  who  seek 
to  combine  the  love  of  truth  with  the  Christian  life :  we 
recognize  the  great  services  which  you  have  rendered  to 
the  study  of  the  Philosophy  of  Religion  :  and  we  congratu- 
late you  on  having  completed  recently  two  great  and  im- 
portant works,  at  an  age  when  most  men,  if  their  days  are 
prolonged,  find  it  necessary  to  rest  from  their  labours. 


LATER  PUBLICATIONS  ;    A  REMARKABLE  TESTIMONIAL     II 9 

"  You  have  taught  your  generation  that,  both  in  poHtics 
and  rehgion,  there  are  truths  above  party,  independent  of 
contemporary  opinion,  and  which  cannot  be  overthrown, 
for  their  foundations  are  in  the  heart  of  man ;  you  havfc 
shewn  that  there  may  be  an  inward  unity  transcending  the 
divisions  of  the  Christian  World,  and  that  the  charity  and 
sympathy  of  Christians  are  not  to  be  hmited  to  those  who 
bear  the  name  of  Christ;  you  have  sought  to  harmonize 
the  laws  of  the  spiritual  with  those  of  the  natural  world, 
and  to  give  to  each  their  due  place  in  human  life ;  you 
have  preached  a  Christianity  of  the  spirit,  and  not  of  the 
letter,  which  is  inseparable  from  morality ;  you  have 
spoken  to  us  of  a  hope  beyond  this  world ;  you  have  given 
rest  to  the  minds  of  many. 

"  We  admire  the  simple  record  of  a  long  life  passed  in 
the  strenuous  fulfilment  of  duty,  in  preaching,  in  teaching 
the  young  of  both  sexes,  in  writing  books  of  permanent 
value,  a  life  which  has  never  been  distracted  by  contro- 
versy, and  in  which  personal  interests  and  ambitions  have 
never  been  allowed  a  place. 

"  In  addressing  you  we  are  reminded  of  the  words  of 
Scripture,  '  His  eye  was  not  dim,  nor  his  natural  force 
abated,'  and  we  wish  you  yet  a  few  more  years  both  of 
energetic  thought  and  work,  and  of  honoured  rest." 

It  bore  between  six  and  seven  hundred  signatures  of 
those  whose  "  praise  was  fame."  The  first  signature  was 
that  of  Tennyson ;  the  next  was  that  of  Robert  Browning, 
followed  by  the  names  of  Benjamin  Jowett,  G.  G.  Bradley, 
Dr.  E.  Zeller  of  Berlin,  F.  Max  Muller,  W.  E.  H.  Lecky, 
Edwin  Arnold,  E.  Renan,  Otto  Pfleiderer ;  a  long  list  of 
Professors  of  St.  Andrews,  Edinburgh,  Glasgow,  Aberdeen, 
Oxford ;  of  the  Universities  of  Jena,  Berlin,  Groningen, 
Amsterdam,  Leiden ;  of  Harvard  University,  the  Andover 
Theological  School  —  its  entire  board  of  instruction,  of 
Johns  Hopkins  University ;   of  members  of  Parliament  in 


120  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

long  array;  of  distinguished  Americans, — James  Russell 
Lowell,  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  Frederic  H.  Hedge, 
Phillips  Brooks,  Philip  Schaff;  a  great  number  of  clergy- 
men, of  England,  France,  Germany,  Holland,  America, — 
the  leaders  of  all  schools  of  Protestant  Christian  thought. 
Party  distinctions  were  lost  to  view  in  the  common  recog- 
nition of  a  common  benefactor.  As  one  scans  the  list 
of  names  and  marks  the  many  that  are  the  lustre  of  our 
age,  leaders  in  letters,  science,  philosophy,  theology,  and 
public  service,  he  is  likely  to  query  whether  a  nobler 
tribute  could  have  been  offered.  The  only  names  con- 
spicuously absent  are  those  of  men  of  science,  espe- 
cially of  those  of  agnostic  tendencies ;  and  some  of  these, 
unable  to  subscribe  to  all  the  terms  of  the  Address,  sent 
him  their  personal  acknowledgment.  The  Address  and 
signatures  were  offered  him  in  a  book  of  surpassing 
elegance. 

Dr.  Martineau's  reply  was  characteristically  modest; 
and  whoever  can,  may  believe  the  free  movement  of  his 
pen  was  not  interfered  with  by  a  throbbing  of  his  heart : 
"  You  will  not  wonder  that  the  Address  which  you  sent  to 
me  on  the  2ist  ult.  has  overwhelmed  me  and  put  me  to 
silence  for  some  days,  rendering  as  it  does  my  eighty-third 
birthday  the  most  memorable  of  my  life.  But  I  must  not 
longer  wait  for  what  can  never  come,  —  the  power  of  fitly 
expressing  the  wondering  gratitude  with  which  I  read,  in 
its  paragraphs  and  signatures,  assurances  of  respect  and 
affection  impressive  from  their  number  and  priceless  from 
their  source.  To  be  held  of  any  account  by  the  elite  of 
those  to  whom  I  have  habitually  looked  up,  including  rep- 
resentatives from  the  foremost  ranks  of  literature,  science, 
philosophy,  religion,  and  personal  character,  is  an  honour 
simply  mysterious  to  me.  *  Ea  est  profecto  jiicunda  laiis, 
qucB  ab  Us  proficiscitur,  qui  ipsi  in  laude  vixerunt!  To 
such  an  escort  down  the  declining  path  of  life,  what  can 


LATER  PUBLICATIONS  ;    A  REMARKABLE  TESTIMONIAL     121 

an  old  man  do  but  throw  out  a  few  faltering  words  of 
thanks,  and  love,  and  reverence? 

"  The  studies  and  duties  of  my  life  have  centered  upon 
subjects  which  at  once  draw  men  into  closest  union,  and 
part  them  in  widest  severance,  and  so  render  the  due  com- 
bination of  intensity  with  catholicity  of  afifection,  one  of 
the  rarest  of  human  excellences.  All  the  more  striking  is 
the  abounding  evidence  of  its  presence  in  the  list  of  names 
attached  to  your  Address  —  names,  not  only  supplied 
from  variously  contrasted  schools  of  thought  and  faith, 
but  even  sent  in  by  the  very  authors  whom  I  have  had 
occasion  to  criticize  and  controvert.  Deeply  as  I  am 
touched  by  this  as  a  trait  of  personal  generosity,  I  honour 
it  no  less  as  an  insight  into  the  philosopher's  secret — that, 
often,  differing  conceptions,  if  in  one  direction  opening 
into  divergencies  of  opinion,  converge  in  the  other  and 
close  upon  the  truth. 

"  To  those  who,  though  unable  to  subscribe  to  every 
clause  in  the  Address,  have  yet  signified  their  wish  to  be 
associated  with  its  general  purport  of  sympathy  and  con- 
gratulation, I  cannot  refrain  from  tendering  my  cordial 
acknowledgments,  not  only  for  what  they  express,  but  for 
the  solid  guarantee  for  its  serious  meaning  and  sincerity 
in  what  they  withhold.  Such  residue  of  approval  as,  in 
hearts  thus  scrupulously  honourable,  can  still  be  spared  to 
me,  is  all  the  more  precious  from  its  fidelity  to  truth. 

"Among  the  signatures  from  foreign  lands  are  some 
names  dear  to  me  as  those  of  former  pupils,  now  occupy- 
ing posts  of  honourable  service,  whether  for  Church  or 
University,  in  the  East  of  Europe.  But  I  also  see  the 
autographs  of  many  distinguished  scholars  and  philoso- 
phers whom  I  have  long  regarded  with  the  homage  due  to 
intellectual  benefactors.  In  several  instances  the  appear- 
ance of  their  names  is  the  more  grateful  to  me  because,  as 
I  know  it  does  not  imply  philosophical  agreement,  it  can 


122  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

only  mean  that,  in  what  they  have  seen  of  my  writings, 
they  find  something  to  approve  in  the  matter  or  the  spirit 
of  the  discussions.  To  no  ampler  encouragement  do  I 
aspire  than  such  witness  from  such  men." 

The  life  had  yet  other  years  before  it;  but  here  the 
story  of  the  labor  endeth.  With  his  last  book  his  task 
was  performed,  his  message  was  delivered ;  and  there  now 
awaited  that  period  of  "  honoured  rest  "  which  the  Address 
prayed  for  him.  Not,  indeed,  a  period  of  idleness;  offices 
of  love  and  blessing  he  was  still  to  find  and  to  discharge. 
Yes,  and  something  of  the  old  service  too :  when  the 
newly  discovered  Gospel  of  Peter  was  a  dominant  interest, 
his  eager  mind  plunged  into  its  study,  and  his  facile  pen 
enriched  the  Nineteenth  Century  with  a  critical  judgment 
of  it.  When  Balfour's  Foundations  of  Belief  was  a  fresh 
wonder,  though  at  the  great  age  of  ninety,  he  appeared  in 
the  same  magazine  with  an  elaborate  discussion  of  its  con- 
tents, which  showed  nothing  more  clearly  than  that  "  his 
eye  was  not  dim,  nor  his  natural  force  abated."  For  a 
volume  of  sermons  ^  by  his  friend  and  early  comrade,  John 
Hamilton  Thorn,  he  furnished  a  Memorial  Preface  of  great 
interest  and  tenderness.  Still  the  strenuousness  of  life  was 
past;  the  sunrise  could  bear  him  cheer,  and  not  at  the 
same  time  a  summons  to  an  exigent  and  relentless  service. 
He  had  opportunity  for  the  greetings  of  love  and  the  testi- 
monies of  appreciation ;  opportunity,  too,  to  note  in  its 
trace  upon  other  minds  the  significance  of  his  labors,  and 
to  gain  some  foretaste  of  the  fame  that  posthumously 
awaited  him. 

1  A  Spiritual  Faith. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

HIS   INTELLECT 

Among  the  impressions  derived  from  the  preceding  pages 
must  surely  be  that  of  unusual  work,  unusual  both  in 
amount  and  in  variety.  By  his  labors  must  one  prove 
himself  a  Hercules  or  no ;  and  here  we  come  to  a  provi- 
sional estimate  of  Mr.  Martineau's  powers.  For  twenty- 
eight  years  he  discharged  all  the  offices  of  a  metropolitan 
clergyman,  answering,  too,  the  numberless  calls  which  con- 
spicuous ability  and  acknowledged  leadership  brought  him. 
For  ten  other  years,  alternating  with  a  colleague,  he  kept 
regular  appointment  with  a  pulpit ;  and  for  yet  four  other 
years  he  bore  the  burden  of  pulpit  toil  alone.  We  thus 
foot  up  forty-two  years  of  clerical  service.  Taking  into 
account  the  severe  standard  to  which  he  held  himself,  here, 
according  to  our  common  way  of  thinking,  is  a  very  fair 
life's  work ;  and  one  should  pass  unchallenged  to  the  king- 
dom of  Rest  who  has  this  record  for  credential.  But  we 
have  to  add  forty-five  years  as  college  professor,  during 
eleven  of  which  he  was  also  college  principal.  His  de- 
partment, too,  was  one  that  laid  upon  him  the  severest 
exactions  :  he  was  surrounded  by  inquisitive  young  men 
who  must  be  instructed  in  the  lore  of  Plato  and  Aris- 
totle, who  must  be  led  in  paths  hewn  out  by  Descartes 
and  Hume,  and  to  whom  the  vast  regions  of  German 
Philosophy  and  Theology  must  be  laid  open.  From  his 
position,  also,  he  must  keep  a  watchful  eye  on  contem- 
porary movements  of  thought,  ready  to  meet  any  Mill  or 


124  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

Mansel  with  critical  challenge  or  approval.  Through  this 
long  period  worthily  to  have  filled  this  office  and  done  no 
more,  filled  it  as  he  filled  it,  had  been  to  perform  the  hfe- 
work  of  an  able  and  industrious  man.  He  had  then  left  a 
memory  rather  than  a  record,  but  it  had  been  a  memory 
of  faithful  and  laborious  years.  But  we  have  now  to  add 
his  literary  labors,  which,  as  measured  by  his  published 
works,  are  in  amount  not  less  than  the  score  of  volumes  it 
taxed  the  great  powers  of  Carlyle  to  bring  forth.  His 
writings,  too,  wear  never  a  slipshod  and  extempore  look, 
but  show  always  the  thinker's  toil,  the  scholar's  diligence, 
the  rhetorician's  care.  A  part  of  this  work  is,  indeed,  the 
outcome  of  pulpit  and  professorial  labors  ;  yet  a  complete 
collection  of  his  printed  writings  should  show  a  dozen 
goodly  volumes,  produced  without  reference  to  either. 
Hardly  a  theological  movement,  hardly  a  philosophical 
problem,  during  the  last  sixty  years  has  broadly  engaged 
human  thought,  to  the  discussion  of  which  he  did  not 
contribute.  The  names  of  a  few  of  those  with  whose 
work  he  critically  dealt —  Comte,  Bentham,  Mill,  Whewell, 
Spencer,  Tyndall,  Bain,  Mansel,  Grote,  Hamilton,  Strauss, 
Renan,  Parker,  Newman,  Lessing,  Schleiermacher,  Cole- 
ridge, Carlyle — indicate  the  latter-day  problems,  how  many 
and  of  what  scope,  which  his  tireless  mind  toiled  to  eluci- 
date. This  literary  labor  alone  would  seem  enough  to  en- 
title him  to  a  conspicuous  place  among  the  workers  of  the 
world. 

To  have  performed  any  one  of  these  services  had  been 
to  acquit  himself  worthily ;  to  have  performed  any  two  of 
them  had  been  enough  to  challenge  our  admiration  and 
gratitude;  the  fact  that  he  performed  them  all  places  him, 
of  course,  among  the  phenomenal  men.  In  the  presence 
of  such  achievement,  question  as  to  the  greatness  of  his 
powers  were  like  question  as  to  the  strength  of  Atlas  while 
poising  the  globe  on  his  shoulders. 


HIS   INTELLECT  I25 

Such  estimate,  however,  is  somewhat  gross ;  it  is  like 
giving  account  of  the  CorHss  engine  by  telling  the  number 
of  its  horse-power,  whereas  it  is  the  interior  structure 
of  its  wonderful  machinery  of  which  men  want  to  learn. 
What  account  can  be  given  of  the  powers  of  that  intellect 
through  the  toils  of  which  such  marvellous  labors  were 
accomplished? 

I.  The  portrait  of  such  a  mind,  however  faithfully 
taken,  is  hkely  to  satisfy  not  many;  it  wears  such  different 
aspects  according  to  the  position  from  which  it  is  studied. 
All,  however,  will  allow  to  Mr.  Martineau  an  acquisitive 
power  remarkably  great  and  varied.  The  diverse  fields  in 
which  this  faculty  seemed  at  its  best  especially  impresses  us, 
as  setting  aside,  or  rather,  by  a  notable  exception,  proving, 
the  current  theory  that  will  not  allow  us  to  expect  a  many- 
sided  cleverness.  That  Prescott  and  Macaulay  should  find 
no  joy  in  mathematics,  that  Spencer  should  be  an  indiffer- 
ent linguist,  and  that  Darwin  in  his  later  years  should  lose 
all  relish  for  poetry  and  music,  seems  natural  enough; 
while  a  mind  that  can  pass  from  deep  absorption  in  the 
differential  calculus  to  an  absorption  no  less  deep  in  a 
Greek  chorus,  and  turn  without  a  sigh  from  /Eschylos  or 
Sophocles  to  the  logic  of  Hamilton  or  Mill ;  take  up  in 
turn  with  no  less  interest  the  details  of  any  science  that  a 
Carpenter  or  Youmans  or  Lockyer  may  offer ;  meet  as  if 
the  one  and  only  enthusiasm  the  reasonings  of  Pascal  or 
Butler,  the  dialectic  of  Plato  or  Kant,  the  generalizations  of 
Comte  or  Spencer ;  that  is  at  home  in  the  minutiae  of  Bibh- 
cal  learning,  happy  in  ethnological  research  or  historical 
investigation,  finds  problems  of  political  or  social  economy 
exhilarating,  turns  with  joyful  appreciation  to  art  or  music, 
draws  quickening  and  solace  from  Tintern  Abbey  and  In 
Memoriam,  seems  to  us  a  splendid  anomaly.  The  com- 
pensation which  experience  teaches  us  to  look  for,  whereby 
the  man  is  sacrificed  in  one  direction  that  he  may  be  mag- 


126  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

nified  in  another,  seems  happily  put  by.  And  this  de- 
scription illustrates  the  intellect  of  Mr.  Martineau  in  its 
wonderfully  varied  capacities.  In  his  native  aptitudes  na- 
ture made  provision  for  a  universal  scholar.  And  when  we 
turn  from  the  range  of  his  aptitudes  to  the  mass  of  his  ac- 
quirements, the  spectacle  is  even  more  suggestive.  We 
hear,  indeed,  of  none  of  those  prodigious  achievements 
which  astonish  us  now  and  then,  as  of  Theodore  Parker, 
who  would  absorb  the  contents  of  a  heavy  volume  at  a 
single  sitting ;  his  powers  seem  natural  rather  than  preter- 
natural, —  large,  facile,  ready,  and  to  their  tireless  applica- 
tion we  must  refer  the  amazing  amplitude  of  his  learning. 
All  readers  remark  the  ease  with  which  he  draws  from 
mathematics,  as  if  the  calculus  and  analytical  geometry  were 
a  pleasant  substitute  for  Addison  or  Montaigne,  for  the  di- 
version of  his  leisure.  His  linguistic  attainments  were  large 
and  profound,  and  justify  the  feeling  that  he  might  have  be- 
come the  companion  and  peer  of  Whitney  and  Max  Miiller 
had  he  not  chosen  rather  to  wrestle  with  the  problems  of 
Plato  and  Spinoza.  In  the  domain  of  physical  science  he 
was  widely  at  home,  and  to  the  last  revelation  any  Proctor 
brought  from  the  stars,  the  last  discovery  of  any  Lyell, 
the  last  experiment  of  any  Faraday,  the  last  fact  of  any 
Darwin,  one  was  almost  certain  to  find  his  quick  mind 
adjusted.  He  had  a  firm  grasp  upon  history,  its  details 
and  forces ;  political  and  social  systems  were  given  large 
scope  in  his  studies  ;  in  political  economy  he  read  exhaust- 
ively; religious  institutions,  ancient,  mediaeval,  modern, 
he  explored  to  their  foundation-thought;  of  schools  of 
Biblical  criticism,  theological  systems,  in  their  genesis, 
history,  substance,  he  spoke  with  expert  authority;  while 
in  ethics  and  philosophy  he  had  travelled  all  the  mean- 
dering way  from  the  Athens  of  Plato  to  the  Concord  of 
Emerson.  He  found  place  also  for  more  genial  letters: 
from  the  essayists  and  poets  and  noveUsts  he  drew  solace 


HIS   INTELLECT  12/ 

and  inspiration.  He  wrote  so  much,  it  is  difficult  to  see 
how  with  the  burden  of  his  most  onerous  duties  he  ever 
found  time  to  read ;  yet  he  read  so  much  that  it  is  matter 
of  simple  wonder  how  he  ever  wrote  at  all.  Over  a  con- 
gress of  sages  no  other  of  his  time  could  more  fittingly 
have  presided ;  a  dozen  specialists  might  have  been 
equipped  out  of  his  vast  erudition. 

The  strength  of  the  strong  man  is  seen  not  merely  in 
the  burden  that  he  carries,  but  also  in  the  manner  of  the 
carrying.  Such  a  mass  of  erudition  may  make  one  simply 
one  of  the  "  asses  of  Parnassus,"  a  not  valueless,  but  a 
comparatively  ignoble  animal,  which  of  all  things  Mr.  Mar- 
tineau  was  not.  This  weight  of  learning  he  carried  with 
an  ease  that  suggests  that  it  might  have  been  his  toy  had 
it  not  been  his  tool.  While  no  burden,  neither  was  it 
a  hindrance  to  his  movement.  His  treasures,  gathered 
always  for  use,  his  quickly  organizing  mind  distributed  to 
their  several  places  to  await  their  call.  Here  we  reach 
the  supreme  proof  of  a  great  scholar,  in  that  a  vast  and 
multifarious  learning  is  never  impedimenta.  Turn  for 
comparison  to  that  wondrous  scholar,  Theodore  Parker, 
who,  like  Bacon,  seemed  to  take  all  knowledge  for  his 
province,  but  who  certainly  failed  in  the  test  of  his  powers 
here  provided.  His  mind  was  not  unlike  some  vast  mu- 
seum, on  whose  shelves  are  indeed  many  specimens  duly 
classified  and  labelled,  but  on  whose  floor  are  heterogene- 
ous piles,  specimens  of  many  genera  confusedly  mixed,  a 
learned  litter  which  the  master's  hand  has  not  yet  disposed 
to  order.  Mr.  Martineau's  museum,  not  less  rich  in  accu- 
mulation, is  yet  always  in  order.  His  specimens  are  always 
in  their  place,  and  never  an  obstruction. 

2.  Behind  Mr.  Martineau  the  scholar  was  Mr.  Martineau 
the  thinker.  This  vast  power  of  acquisition  was  associate 
with  the  genius  of  patient  and  toilsome  meditation.  Learn- 
ing, much  as  he  loved   it,  was  subsidiary,  —  torch,  com- 


128  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

pass,  telescope,  to  light  him  and  guide  him  in  the  arcana 
of  ideas.  No  beauty  of  flowers  could  blind  him  to  the 
botany  that  organizes  them,  and  no  glory  of  stars,  to  the 
astronomy  that  explains  them.  There  was  in  him,  indeed, 
that  of  which,  left  to  itself,  the  pedant  is  made :  an  ex- 
treme care  for  the  trivialities  of  learning,  or  what  we  call 
such,  like  that  which  Professor  Agassiz  once  humorously 
drew  to  himself,  when,  asked  by  a  lyceum  committee  to  lec- 
ture on  fishes,  he  declared  it  a  thing  impossible ;  he  could 
not  give  a  lecture  on  fishes,  but  he  would  like  to  give  a 
"  course  of  lectures  on  a  scale."  In  Mr.  Martineau's  case, 
however,  it  was  like  the  care  of  the  mathematician  for  his 
formulae,  mindful  of  the  eclipses  he  must  calculate  and  the 
planetary  orbits  he  must  measure.  As  of  learning,  so  of 
the  very  lords  of  thought  and  knowledge.  He  had  many 
teachers,  but  never  a  master.  He  gathered  the  regal  of 
all  time  at  his  board ;  yet  was  he  ruler  of  the  feast,  and, 
with  whatever  deference  in  his  tone,  he  firmly  directed, 
"  Aristotle,  sit  thou  here ;  "  "  Spencer,  sit  thou  there." 
As  the  discourse  flowed  on,  and  one  after  another  held 
attention,  the  issue  was  the  host's  predetermined  conclu- 
sion ;  as  in  the  Platonic  dialogues,  Socrates  may  question 
and  Glaucon  answer  and  Adeimantus  join  in  the  argu- 
ment, yet  in  the  end  it  is  only  Plato  that  we  hear. 

With  respect  to  the  order  of  his  mind  he  was  logician, 
that  is  to  say,  he  was  not  diviner.  He  held  afifinity  with 
Mill  rather  than  with  Emerson ;  he  was  philosopher,  not 
seer.  This  is  not  saying  that  visions  were  not  given  him; 
it  is  noting  the  nature  of  the  receptacle  into  which  they 
came.  He  deduced  conclusions ;  he  did  not  announce 
oracles.  Indeed,  there  is  chance  to  suspect  that  from  the 
strength  of  his  logical  sensibility  it  was  possible  for  him  to 
fail  in  appreciation  where  there  was  conspicuous  want  of 
it.  Thus,  of  his  great  contemporaries,  Emerson  seems 
least  of  all  to  have  moved  him.     He  had  a  smile  for  Emer- 


HIS   INTELLECT  I29 

son,  but  he  had  applause  for  Parker.  Recognizing  his 
genius,  it  is  yet  doubtful  if  he  was  entirely  happy  in  that 
no-method  by  which  our  seer  reached  stars  indeed,  but 
left  no  orderly  track  by  which  to  follow  after  him.  He  be- 
lieved in  feet  and  careful  and  toilsome  climbing,  but  the 
winged  kind  were  to  him  the  children  of  Icarus  and  heirs 
to  his  fate. 

There  is  a  peculiar  charm  in  his  logic ;  it  seems  not  an 
instrument  that  he  uses,  but  an  instinct  that  rules  him.  It 
is  his  life,  not  his  rule ;  by  it  his  structure  grows  rather 
than  is  builded.  The  works  of  the  great  logicians  are  apt 
to  suggest  the  carpenter  whose  edifice  may  be  imposing, 
but  the  careful  jointings  of  which  are  none  the  less  plainly 
apparent.  Mr.  Martineau's  edifice  suggests  an  immanent 
reason  that  works  thus  and  not  otherwise.  Of  its  range,  too, 
a  word  should  be  spoken.  There  is  one  power  which  we 
look  for  in  a  telescope,  another  in  a  microscope ;  and 
among  logicians  there  is  an  analogous  contrast.  The  two 
powers  Mr.  Martineau's  logic  combines ;  it  is  equal  to 
solar  systems  of  thought  and  the  finest  reticulations  of 
argument.  Behind  it,  too,  is  an  intrepid  daring  and  an  in- 
tense conviction,  from  which  it  becomes  "  logic  on  fire," 
which  Demosthenes  defined  eloquence  to  be. 

He  was  strong  in  induction ;  his  ability  to  scrutinize  facts 
and  detect  the  law  that  binds  and  interprets  them,  sedu- 
lously cultivated,  should  have  enrolled  him  with  the  Lyells 
and  Faradays,  as  a  master  of  inductive  knowledge.  He 
was,  however,  more  characteristically  deductive.  Indeed 
he  seemed  never  quite  at  his  best  save  when  his  feet  were 
planted  on  a  priori  ground.  Here  he  was  a  mailed  and 
dauntless  knight  ready  for  any  tournament  of  thought. 
To  apply  a  fundamental  truth  to  diverse  problems  of 
human  interest,  to  prove  systems  by  their  congruity  with 
it,  to  build  by  it  so  that  his  structure  in  all  its  parts  should 
be   like    the   tree    whose    roots,    trunk,    branches,    twigs, 

9 


I30  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

leaves,  are  informed  by  one  life,  was  the  aim  by  which  his 
noblest  labors  were  accomplished. 

3.  Whoever  reads  him  is  sensible  of  the  strength  of  his 
imagination,  and  how  it  co-operates  with  his  clear  thinking 
to  give  vividness  to  his  thought.  And  not  only  vividness, 
but  definiteness.  He  had  a  genius  for  outline  and  bound- 
ary. He  was  a  surveyor  who  traced  the  border  line  between 
contiguous  provinces  of  thought,  and,  through  whatever 
wilderness,  left  a  Via  Appia  behind  him. 

We  touch  here  upon  that  quality  which  some  have 
called  his  cleverness,  and  others  have  named  —  perhaps 
less  happily  but  not  without  good  reason  —  his  Frenchiness ; 
a  quality  which  his  peculiarly  vivid  imagination  must  ex- 
plain. In  some  of  his  mental  characteristics  he  seemed  of 
the  German  type.  Yet  was  he  French  in  his  origin ;  and  it 
may  well  be  that  the  moulding  of  generations  by  which  he 
became  an  Englishman  left  in  him  something  of  the  genius 
of  his  ancestry.  He  once  spoke  of  his  friend,  J.  J.  Tayler, 
as  the  English  Schleiermacher,  a  designation  which  the 
admirers  of  both  would  the  rather  give  to  Mr.  Martineau, 
Yet  were  the  designation  improved  by  a  significant  addition. 
Schleiermacher, — yes;  but  Schleiermacher  with  an  infu- 
sion —  shall  we  say?  —  of  Bossuet.  The  combination  may 
be  illustrated  thus :  The  German  rolls  down  a  mighty 
stream,  but,  like  the  Mississippi,  its  waters  are  apt  to  be 
murky ;  there  are  snags  to  vex  the  navigator ;  the  channel 
is  inconstant;  the  banks  open  into  bayous;  and  the  un- 
practised sailor  may  often  be  in  doubt  whether  it  is  river 
or  bottom-land  over  which  he  is  sailing.  The  Frenchman's 
river  may  be  somewhat  less  in  volume,  but  its  waters  are 
clear ;  its  channel  is  not  to  be  mistaken ;  and  its  banks 
after  whatever  rains  are  sure  to  restrain  the  flood.  Mr. 
Martineau's  river  is  a  Mississippi,  but  a  Mississippi  of 
clear  water.  Its  channel  is  constant ;  its  banks  are  never 
broken.     It  bends,  too,  in  many  a  curve  of  beauty;  and 


HIS   INTELLECT  I3I 

where  it  rolls  through  realms  of  metaphysic  darkness,  as 
to  many  a  sailor  metaphysic  realms  must  be,  there  is  no 
want  of  guiding  lights  that  gleam  upon  the  headlands. 

4,  He  had  a  genius  for  criticism,  and  that  of  the  nobler 
sort  that  honors  while  it  disapproves  and  creates  while  it 
destroys.  It  was,  indeed,  no  trifling  circumstance  to  be 
brought  before  his  tribunal,  and  one  who  sustained  there 
his  examination  well  needed  to  have  no  dread  of  Rhada- 
manthus.  There  was  a  justice  that  gave  the  full  meed  of 
recognition,  but  which  with  the  feeble  theory  or  the  incon- 
sequential reasoning  dealt  inexorably.  Often  his  criticism 
suggested  the  glacier,  radiant  in  sunshine  and  sending 
irrigating  streams  down  the  valleys,  yet  grinding  the  very 
boulders  into  powder. 

In  his  critical  labors  he  aimed  at  two  results :  a  clear 
presentation  of  an  author's  teaching  in  which  its  limitations 
must  of  course  appear,  and  a  large  view  of  its  relations. 
With  respect  to  the  former  his  method  was  simple :  he 
seized  upon  some  pivotal  idea,  and  by  that,  its  absolute 
worth  and  the  success  of  its  application,  was  the  work  jus- 
tified or  no.  Such  criticism,  executed  in  his  thorough 
fashion,  is  most  helpful,  and  after  following  the  ramifica- 
tions of  some  treatise,  the  student  may  turn  to  him  as  the 
ship  out  of  reckoning  may  hail  a  passing  voyager.  A 
venerable  sage  once  testified  that  of  all  his  reading  of 
Plato,  the  Platonic  writings  included,  Mr.  Martineau's  dis- 
cussion in  the  Types  of  Ethical  Theory  had  yielded  the 
most  luminous  view  of  him.  It  is,  however,  in  the  rela- 
tions he  opens  before  us  that  most  have  found  his  criticism 
especially  helpful.  The  average  Briton,  type  of  human 
nature  in  more  senses  than  one,  easily  magnifies  his  island 
to  the  proportions  of  a  continent,  —  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses he  may  think  it  the  world ;  and  dwellers  in  Nepaul 
may  doubt  whether  above  their  Himalayas  is  any  height 
worth  mentioning.     Our  infinite  is  apt  to  be  practically 


132  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

that  beyond  the  limits  of  which  we  do  not  see.  Mr.  Mar- 
tineau  never  minimized  his  islands,  but  he  had  the  knack 
of  embracing  island  and  embosoming  ocean  in  one  view. 
He  never  depreciated  his  mountains,  but,  at  whatever 
height,  saw  the  blue  dome  above  them,  and  the  measure- 
less vacancy  around  them.  When  the  Philosophy  of  evo- 
lution first  beamed  upon  us,  and  to  our  bewildered  sight 
seemed  to  take  all  things  within  its  embrace,  Mr.  Mar- 
tineau,  surveying  its  boundaries,  showed  us  a  bordering 
infinity  which  its  very  genius  excluded  from  its  embrace.^ 
Perhaps  we  still  believed  in  Evolution,  but  he  verily  com- 
pelled us,  in  seeing  it,  to  see  also  more.  Turn  to  his 
splendid  critique  of  Sir  William  Hamilton,  a  planetary 
man,  shown  in  all  his  planetary  proportions ;  yet  shown 
in  a  heaven  of  ideas  in  which  is  space  for  a  million  orbs  as 
large. 

5.  He  was  a  born  polemic,  and  there  was  in  him  a  for- 
ward eagerness  in  this  kind  of  warfare.  He  was  apt  at 
fence ;  his  attack,  had  it  not  been  of  the  kind  to  be  coveted, 
had  certainly  been  dreaded.  In  intellectual  combat  no 
man  was  ever  more  observant  of  the  chivalries ;  indeed  he 
was  in  controversy  our  knightly  Bayard. 

6.  But  how  of  his  literary  style?  —  for  while  royalty  in 
homespun  is  royal,  we  yet  like  to  meet  our  king  in  kingly 
attire.  And  it  is  in  kingly  attire  that  we  meet  Mr.  Marti- 
neau.  We  may  like  to  vary  the  cut  in  some  particulars, 
and  change  a  decoration  here  and  there,  yet  the  material 
of  the  robe  is  unmistakably  Tyrian  purple. 

It  is  a  unique  style,  and  a  passage  of  Shakespeare  is 
hardly  more  easy  to  distinguish  than  a  passage  of  Marti- 
neau.  Not  only  is  it  unique,  it  is  profoundly  personal. 
As  Schopenhauer  would  say,  it  is  a  "  physiognomy,"  not 
a   "  mask."      Respecting    no    other   can    be    more   safely 

^  "  Science,  Nescience,  and  Faith,"  in  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses, 
vol.  iii. 


HIS  INTELLECT  133 

quoted  the  dictum,  "  The  style  is  the  man."  As  a  unique 
style  is  almost  sure  to  do,  it  has  drawn  the  reproach  of 
being  far  sought  and  artificial.  Yet  its  characteristic  fea- 
tures, as  met  in  sermon  or  essay,  appear  also  in  his  letters, 
his  extempore  talk,  his  conversation ;  and  whoever  will 
give  adequate  account  of  it  must  take  his  very  soul  into 
the  reckoning.  As  a  "  physiognomy  "  it  is  only  luminous 
from  an  inward  light. 

It  is  not  the  grand  style,  like  that  of  Frederic  H. 
Hedge.  It  is,  however,  a  full  style;  his  sentence  is  a 
golden  beaker  flowing  to  the  brim.  What  he  aims  to 
express  may  be  the  smaller  part  of  what  he  conveys; 
allusion,  metaphor,  open  how  many  side-lights  of  detain- 
ing suggestion.  He  is  not  especially  sententious;  he  does 
not  deal  largely  in  aphorisms;  yet  few  writers  tell  so 
much  that  they  do  not  say. 

It  is,  too,  a  poetical  style.  The  "  faculty  divine  "  was 
not  given  him,  but  the  "  vision  "  was ;  and  in  no  meagre 
degree  it  ruled  his  utterance.  All  readers  of  him 
observe  an  habitual  cadence  in  his  sentence,  as  if  dic- 
tated by  an  interior  rhythm.  Within  him  was  a  sensi- 
bility that  felt  an  inharmonious  structure  as  a  poet  feels 
a  faulty  measure,  or  a  musician  a  discord.  His  language 
and  illustration,  too,  make  it  plain  that  a  beauty  haunted 
him ;  yet  is  the  poet  within  him  severely  ruled  by  the 
artist.  In  his  loftiest  flights  he  indulges  in  no  rhapsody. 
It  is  prose  that  he  writes,  prose  that  his  naive  poetry 
animates,  decorates,  illuminates,  but  leaves  always  prose. 

He  is  elaborate,  but  not  diffuse;  not  lavish  in  language 
nor  yet  parsimonious ;  every  figure  is  organic,  every  word 
is  vital.  His  page  betrays  ever  a  painstaking  accuracy; 
yet  there  are  those  who  complain  that  he  is  obscure. 
Such  might  often  well  recall  the  saying  of  Goethe,  "In 
the  dark  the  plainest  writing  is  illegible,"  and  ask  whether 
the  obscurity  is  in  Mr.  Martineau  or  in  themselves.     To 


134  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

scale  his  heights  or  to  descend  into  his  depths  no  ordering 
of  the  pathway  can  make  always  easy.  However  plain 
the  statement,  there  are  yet  thoughts  that  tax  our  think- 
ing; and  Mr.  Martineau's  are  apt  to  be  of  them.  His 
page  is  for  the  studious,  not  the  indolent  hour.  Yet  in  a 
single  aspect  the  complaint  is  not  without  reason ;  there 
is  an  obscurity  that  comes  from  his  exuberance  of  meta- 
phor. His  metaphors  are  most  admirable  in  themselves, 
never  commonplace  and  always  luminous,  but  they  are 
sown  upon  his  page  in  such  profusion  !  They  come  like 
flashes  of  heat  lightning,  and  bewilder  from  excess  of 
light. 

Though  the  most  serious  of  writers,  yet  not  infrequent 
gleams  of  humor  relieve  his  page.  He  deals  little  in  inci- 
dent, is  sparing  in  anecdote  ;  but  a  happy  turn  in  a  sen- 
tence will  provoke  a  smile,  —  likewise  call  forth  a  tear. 
He  has,  too,  resources  of  satire  which  he  draws  from  not 
frequently.  He  is  strong  in  antithesis,  and  his  words  have 
a  knack  of  running  together  into  golden  sayings,  which 
chng  to  the  memory  Hke  passages  of  Emerson. 

It  is  a  style  wonderfully  varied  to  express  a  many-sided 
man,  —  the  scholar  and  thinker  who  must  feel  the  rock 
beneath  him  as  he  builds,  and  see  his  walls  reared  true  ; 
the  man,  too,  of  aspirations  that  want  a  temple  and  of 
affections  that  want  a  home  ;  so  different  from  that,  for 
instance,  of  Herbert  Spencer,  also  a  "  physiognomy,"  but 
which  expresses  only  a  clear  and  passionless  intellection. 
The  latter  we  might  liken  to  the  Bank  of  England,  solid, 
massive,  but  on  whose  granite  cubes  we  see  no  suggestion 
of  a  heaven  or  a  soul.  The  former  we  might  liken  to  the 
dear  and  venerable  Abbey,  built  on  granite  foundations 
and  its  walls  reared  true,  but  also  with  towers  and  arches 
which  tell  of  a  various  aspiration  and  rapture  and  ideal. 


CHAPTER   IX 

PERSONAL    FEATURES 

In  his  figure  Dr.  Martineau  was  tall  and  spare.  Of  adi- 
pose tissue  he  had  no  superfluity.  One  meeting  him  in 
later  years  observed  a  slight  stoop,  though  it  seemed 
rather  the  stoop  of  the  scholar  than  of  the  octogenarian. 
His  features  were  thin,  his  complexion  delicate.  His 
eyes,  which  were  "  changeful  blue,"  were  not  particularly 
noticeable  until  he  became  animated ;  and  then  his  very 
soul  seemed  shining  through  them.  His  head  was  not 
much  beyond  the  average  in  size,  but  compact,  and  per- 
fect in  its  poise.  His  perceptive  organs  were  large ;  his 
hair,  always  remarkable  for  its  abundance,  in  later  years 
was  bleached  almost  to  whiteness.  Grace  Greenwood, 
writing  of  him  in  1854,  spoke  of  his  head  as  wearing 
a  "  classical  and  chiselled  look,"  and  of  his  features  as 
"  finely  and  clearly  cut  ;  "  a  description  as  true  at  eighty- 
five  as  at  forty-nine. 

His  personal  habits  were  always  natural  and  healthful. 
So  far  from  being  self-indulgent,  his  general  conduct  was 
mildly  suggestive  of  asceticism.  He  was  indeed  no  John 
the  Baptist,  to  make  a  diet  of  locusts  and  wild  honey ;  yet 
one  to  rule  his  breakfast  by  consideration  of  his  morning 
toils,  and  in  dining  not  to  forget  the  evening  hours  of 
study  and  of  thought.  And  while  in  his  conduct  we  may 
see  here  the  ruling  of  prudence,  it  is  not  difficult  to  be- 
lieve that  his  simple  tastes  were  thus  satisfied.  A  dinner 
with  a  few  friends,   with   moderate    abandonment   to    its 


136  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

enjoyment,  he  may  have  found  agreeable ;  a  revel  he  vi^ould 
have  found  unendurable.  He  had  no  artificial  appetites : 
tobacco  he  never  used  ;  without  being  pledged  to  total 
abstinence,  his  use  of  wines  and  liquors  was  almost  wholly 
medicinal.  His  only  intemperance  was  intemperate  work, 
if  that  can  be  called  intemperate  which,  though  vast 
in  amount,  he  sustained  to  extreme  age  unfalteringly. 
All  his  pleasures  were  of  the  rational  and  ennobling  sort. 
Good  art  afforded  him  agreeable  diversion ;  he  enjoyed 
music  and  sought  its  solace ;  he  delighted  in  conversation 
with  the  wise  and  good.  His  home  was  the  magnet  of  his 
heart ;  and  in  the  shelter  of  its  domesticities  was  his  rest, 
his  solace,  his  joy. 

He  had  a  fondness  for  mountain  scenery,  and  a  favorite 
diversion  was  walking.  His  summer  home  in  Scotland 
afforded  him  special  delight  for  the  wild  and  rugged  coun- 
try he  could  there  explore.  In  his  seventy-eighth  year  he 
wrote  of  the  "  annual  delight "  not  yet  forbidden  him  of 
"  reaching  the  chief  summits  of  the  Cairn  Gorm  moun- 
tains." They  tell  in  England  of  his  achieving  twenty  miles 
of  mountain  rambling  in  a  day.  There  is  a  story  of  an 
American  visiting  him  in  his  Scottish  home.  One  morn- 
ing there  arose  a  question  of  diversion:  should  they  walk 
or  drive?  Something  was  said  of  a  walk,  and  Dr.  Marti- 
neau,  pointing  to  a  mountain  eleven  miles  away,  proposed 
a  walk  thither  and  return.  Those  mindful  of  our  ways 
hardly  need  be  told  that  the  American,  who  as  guest  had 
the  determining  vote,  gave  it  in  favor  of  a  drive. 

His  hospitality  was  most  cordial ;  his  manners,  sugges- 
tive of  the  older  and  more  elaborate  style,  were  charmed 
by  a  spirit  that  would  make  any  style,  or  even  want  of 
style,  delightful.  His  voice,  not  loud,  was  admirably  focal- 
ized and  melodious ;  his  enunciation  was  leisurely  though 
not  slow,  and  perfectly  distinct;  he  had  a  vein  of  humor; 
he  laughed    heartily  but   not   noisily.     His    conversation, 


PERSONAL  FEATURES  I 37 

more  it  is  said  in  later  than  in  earlier  years,  tended  to 
monologue,  and  this  for  two  reasons :  first,  from  the 
amplitude  of  his  knowledge,  approaching  him  with  al- 
most any  subject  was  like  taking  a  line  of  verse  to  one 
who  holds  the  whole  poem  in  memory,  and  who  needs 
only  the  prompting  of  the  one  line  to  go  on  to  the  end ; 
and  secondly,  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred,  sitting 
down  with  him,  were  likely  to  act  as  if  on  the  reflec- 
tion, If  Jie  will  talk,  why  should  I  ?  That  reverend  look, 
that  gracious  manner,  that  quiet  and  melodious  speech,  fit 
vehicle  of  the  noblest  wisdom,  were  almost  sure  to  banish 
all  inclination  save  to  listen.  But  then,  in  the  sequel  some- 
thing happened  which  you  scarce  understood,  which  you 
doubted  if  he  did,  and  which  the  fitness  of  things  seemed 
hardly  to  warrant.  As  you  rose  to  go,  he  expressed  to 
yoii  his  gratitude  for  the  favor  you  had  done  Jiim;  which, 
if  of  ordinary  sensibihty,  made  you  only  more  sensible  of 
the  nothing  you  had  done  except  to  receive  from  his  im- 
measurable store.  You  received  the  due  of  an  Esau  who 
had  brought  a  kid,  and  went  your  way  with  the  feelings 
of  a  Jacob  who  had  purloined  a  blessing. 

His  general  manner  was  one  of  calmness  slightly  verging 
upon  severity.  With  a  friend,  or  one  who  had  rightful 
dealing  with  him,  the  severity  dropped  away  and  left  a 
smiling  affability.  Against  the  intruder,  however,  it  may 
have  been  a  defensive  armor.  And  from  another  class  it 
may  have  protected  him,  —  the  destitute,  the  wretched,  from 
whom,  for  the  great  sympathy  of  his  heart,  he  could  not 
always  have  wished  to  be  protected.  A  patient  ear  he 
might  give  to  the  tale,  a  thoughtful  consideration  of  what 
was  expedient;  but  of  the  effusive  sympathy,  the  uncon- 
sidered aid,  for  which  such  are  likely  to  be  looking,  they 
could  have  seen  little  promise  in  that  grave  and  austere 
countenance.  And  it  may  as  well  be  said,  that  what  was 
thus  apparent  at  the  surface    was   probably   true  of  the 


138  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

depths  of  his  nature.  That  is  to  say,  this  large  class  of 
needy  ones  he  could  feel  for  more  easily  than  with.  In 
other  words,  the  possible  union  of  Plato  and  Father  Taylor 
was  not  realized  in  him. 

Friends  and  pupils,  the  latter  with  especial  emphasis,  tell 
of  his  severe  regard  for  minutiae ;  and  illustrative  of  this 
they  dwell  affectionately  upon  special  incidents  that  have 
fallen  under  their  observation.  Trust  their  report,  and  you 
conclude  that  he  ruled  his  life  by  Michael  Angelo's  maxim  : 
"  Trifles  make  perfection,  and  perfection  is  no  trifle." 
Whether  in  the  niceties  of  scholarship,  the  care  for  his  in- 
tellectual judgments,  the  discharge  of  official  duties,  the 
regulation  of  private  affairs,  in  his  appointments,  in  his 
courtesies,  they  maintain  that  it  was  the  same, — nothing 
slighted,  nothing  forgotten.  Like  Thoreau,  he  might  have 
"  left  a  Greek  accent  slanting  the  wrong  way  to  right  up  a 
fallen  man  ;  "  but,  the  man  fairly  set  upon  his  feet,  he  would 
have  returned  at  the  earliest  moment  to  his  Greek  accent, 
whose  mistaken  slant  could  not  have  left  his  memory. 
And  the  casual  observer  saw  something  of  this  in  the  little 
nameless  touches  of  personal  conduct ;  in  his  conversation, 
which  in  his  lightest  moods  was  faultless;  in  his  letters, 
which,  however  hasty  or  however  brief,  were  never  care- 
less. Most  men,  though  scrupulous  enough  in  dealing 
with  the  matters  that  especially  engross  them,  hold  yet 
their  realm  of  order  within  an  unconquered  chaos ;  so  that 
the  slovenly  scholar,  the  boorish  philosopher,  the  states- 
man who  forgets  appointments,  and  the  saint  who  does  not 
answer  his  letters,  are  characters  with  whom  we  are  all  ac- 
quainted. They  keep  their  planets  under  exact  regula- 
tion, but  leave  their  asteroids  outside  the  controlling  law. 
Dr.  Martineau,  on  the  contrary,  illustrated  a  imity  of  char- 
acter in  which  large  and  little,  planets  and  asteroids,  were 
subject  to  the  same  rule ;  so  that  he  answered  his  letters  as 
he  wrote  his  books,  and  was  the  same  where  aff"ection  laid 


PERSONAL  FEATURES  139 

light  exaction  as  in  the  courthcst  circle  he  was  invited  to 
adorn.  And  this  trait  was  apparent  in  all  about  him.  As 
these  words  are  written,  there  floats  into  memory  an  illus- 
trative contrast.  I  recall  a  pleasant  hour  in  the  study  of  a 
London  man  of  letters,  whom  a  grateful  world  recognizes 
among  its  benefactors.  The  library,  rich  in  the  lore  of 
many  tongues,  stood  on  the  shelves  in  utter  disregard  of 
order.  Bacon  was  flanked  by  Douglas  Jerrold  and  Henry 
George,  Homer  was  crucified  between  Akenside  and  Martin 
Tupper,  and  Plato  was  standing  on  his  head  beside  Jouf- 
froy.  Books  and  pamphlets  were  on  the  floor,  in  the 
chairs,  upon  the  sofa.  The  study  table  was  a  confusion  of 
letters,  cuttings  from  newspapers,  books,  pamphlets,  maga- 
zines, sheets  of  manuscript  scattered  like  the  Sibyl's  leaves, 
a  pipe  or  two,  a  pouch  of  tobacco,  the  stumps  of  several 
cigars.  That  room  was  a  Teufelsdrockh's  lair,  which  many 
studious  men  with  good  reason  may  forgive,  but  which 
none  would  have  the  courage  to  commend.  An  hour  later 
I  was  in  Dr.  Martineau's  study,  which,  in  comparison, 
seemed  heaven's  first  law  in  miniature. 

No  feature  of  the  man  was  more  apparent  than  his 
modesty.  Of  the  guerdon  he  had  won  he  had  seemingly 
no  appreciation.  That  on  the  battle-fields  of  thought  he 
had  been  more  than  a  faithful  soldier,  that  he  had  been  a 
leader  and  a  conqueror,  seemed  never  to  occur  to  him. 
The  encomiums  that  came  to  him  impressed  him  with  a 
sense  of  the  generosity  of  others,  not  a  greatness  that  was 
his  own.  With  this  modest  self-estimate  he  combined,  as 
was  but  natural,  the  most  generous  appreciation  of  others. 
Differences  of  opinion  could  not  blind  him  to  the  reality 
of  merit,  and  the  very  knight  he  might  unhorse  he  would 
thank  for  the  example  of  his  prowess.  The  teachers  he 
confessed  were  often  those  whom  he  had  taught,  very 
likely  accrediting  to  their  originahty  a  wisdom  that  was 
first  his  own.     A  lifelong  friend,  speaking  of  earlier  days. 


I40  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

once  humorously  illustrated  this  aspect  of  his  character. 
He  would  meet,  said  the  friend,  some  commonplace 
woman,  and,  in  a  half-hour's  talk,  fill  her  mind  with  ideas 
of  which  she  had  never  dreamed  before.  Three  months 
later  he  might  meet  her  again,  and  she  would  in  some 
measure  give  him  back  the  thoughts  he  had  lavished  on 
her;  and  he,  never  suspecting  the  sun  she  was  reflecting, 
would  go  his  way  telling  of  her  wonderful  intelligence. 

Temperamentally  he  was  not  always  on  the  heights. 
Readers  of  his  sermons,  notwithstanding  the  exultation 
and  the  joy  that  are  in  them,  are  likely  to  feel  an  under- 
tone of  sadness.  It  is  there,  and  those  who  were  nearest 
to  him  know  that  it  does  not  misrepresent  him.  In  such 
as  he,  too,  it  is  peculiarly  natural.  A  heart  so  large  and 
tender,  while  quickened  by  the  gladness,  must  also  feel 
the  sorrow,  of  the  world;  and  one  who  at  intervals  is 
caught  up  into  the  heavens  must  be  sensible  of  the  transi- 
tion to  earth's  damps  and  shadows.  On  the  other  side  of 
life,  however  —  the  practical  as  distinguished  from  the 
ideal  —  his  serenity  was  worthy  of  Seneca  himself.  What- 
ever volcanoes  might  boil  within  him,  at  the  surface  there 
was  no  eruption.  His  wishes  might  be  thwarted,  critics 
might  misrepresent  him,  partisans  disparage,  yet  still  was 
he  cheerful,  dignified,  reasonable. 

Of  the  general  atmosphere  of  the  man,  the  impression 
that  came  fi-om  the  blending  of  these  various  qualities, 
how  tell?  All  readers  of  him  know  the  clearness  and  the 
nobleness  of  his  ethical  judgments;  in  his  presence  one 
was  simply  sure  that  he  was  worthy  of  them.  In  his  won- 
derful sermons  we  are  familiar  with  the  mystic  heights  to 
which  he  climbed  ;  in  his  presence  we  felt  their  reflected 
sunshine.  To  him  as  to  all  men  were  the  "  tides  of  the 
Spirit,"  its  ebbs  as  well  as  floods ;  yet  failing  to  meet  him 
on  the  Mount  of  Beatitudes,  we  should  have  looked  for  him 
on  the  slopes  of  Sinai,  and  wondered  not  to  find  him  there. 


PERSONAL   FEATURES  I4I 

It  was  my  privilege  to  form  acquaintance  with  him  in 
extreme  age, 

"When  the  soul  declares  itself,  — to  wit, 
By  its  fruit,  the  thing  it  does." 

Of  course  I  expected  to  meet  a  scholar;  but  a  scholar 
may  be  a  Johnson.  I  knew  I  was  to  confront  a  thinker; 
but  a  thinker  may  be  a  Schopenhauer.  I  held  him  a  man 
of  genius ;  but  a  genius  may  be  a  Byron  or  a  Carlyle.  I 
hardly  need  say  that  from  these  endowments  acquaintance 
demanded  no  abatement,  and  that  these  examples  could 
only  serve  for  contrast.  Over  against  the  coarseness  of 
Johnson  one  saw  in  him  refinement  refined.  In  contrast 
with  the  selfishness  of  Schopenhauer  one  saw  in  him 
consideration  for  others  that  was  almost  self-effacement. 
In  place  of  the  cynicism  of  Byron  we  met  in  him  the 
serenest  charity ;  instead  of  the  rudeness  of  Carlyle  the 
soul  of  courtesy  and  grace. 

The  thought  of  meeting  one  so  crowned  with  honors 
was  attended  with  natural  anxieties.  Two  hands  extended 
in  welcome,  a  gracious  smile,  a  cordial  word,  and  all 
anxieties  were  gone.  The  happy  discovery  was  made  that 
his  greatness  was  of  the  kind  that  lifts  but  does  not  over- 
power. Of  the  quiet  hours  spent  with  him  I  need  not  tell. 
Sufhce  that  they  fixed  in  my  mind  the  impression  of  a 
sage,  a  hero,  and  a  saint ;  of  one  who  might  converse  with 
Plato,  and  dare  with  Luther,  and  revere  with  Tauler;  an 
habitn^  of  the  Academy,  who  thrilled  to  the  Categorical 
Imperative,  and  who  knelt  at  the  Cross. 


BOOK   II 
THE   RELIGIOUS   TEACHER 

CHAPTER   I 

THE   PREACHER 

From  the  account  of  the  man,  we  come  to  the  severer 
task  of  exhibiting  the  religious  teacher  and  philosopher. 
Dr.  Martineau  began  his  career  as  a  preacher ;  and  it 
seems  fitting  that  to  his  work  as  such  we  devote  a  few 
pages. 

When  our  minds  are  drawn  to  a  noted  preacher,  our 
first  thought  is  likely  to  be  of  his  pulpit  effectiveness ;  and 
this  is  likely  to  be  estimated,  not  in  terms  of  thought,  but 
of  magnetism  and  manner.  Three-fourths  of  the  gossip 
about  Channing  relates  to  how  he  talked  rather  than  what 
he  said ;  and  Beecher's  wise  words  are  forgotten  while 
men  tell  of  the  look,  tone,  gesture,  with  which  he  uttered 
them.  Indeed,  the  substance  of  doctrine  may  be  obscured 
by  the  grace  of  its  proclamation,  and  the  very  Gospel 
be  eclipsed  by  the  histrionics  of  the  apostle.  There  are 
preachers,  however,  with  whom  thought  and  manner  are 
so  blended  in  a  composite  effect,  that  any  account  of  the 
effect  must  linger  largely  on  the  thought;  and  of  such 
was  Dr.  Martineau.  Certainly  we  know  preachers  who 
from  their  graceless  and  spiritless  utterance  could  make 
little  impression,  even  with  sermons  like  Dr.  Martineau's  in 
manuscript  before  them ;  which  is  another  way  of  saying 


THE   PREACHER  143 

that  he  was  never  such  as  they.  At  the  same  time,  it  is 
probably  true  that  he  owes  his  fame  as  a  preacher  to  the 
greatness  of  his  message.  A  Tahnage,  talking  whatever 
emptiness,  will  have  thronging  audience;  Dr.  Martineau 
had  hardly  been  a  marked  figure  in  the  pulpit  but  for  the 
intellectual  and  spiritual  quickening  he  gave. 

Few  school-boys  read  far  into  Cicero's  Orations  with- 
out speculating  as  to  their  probable  impressions,  could 
they  have  sat  in  the  Senate  or  stood  in  the  Forum  on 
some  momentous  occasion  when  the  great  orator  was 
speaking.  Readers  of  the  Endeavors  or  the  Hours  of 
Thought  may  have  indulged  the  like  speculation  as  to 
their  impressions  in  the  church  where  Dr.  Martineau  was 
ministering.  Of  course  these  would  vary  according  to  the 
period  of  his  life ;  but  in  general  such  as  should  come 
from  an  ensemble  like  this :  A  tall,  spare  figure  robed  in 
the  scholar's  gown,  and  wearing  the  dignities  of  his  office 
as  a  natural  grace ;  a  thin  face,  suggestive  of  the  cloister, 
and  traced  with  deep  lines  of  thought;  a  voice  not  loud, 
but  musical  and  reaching ;  an  enunciation  leisurely  but 
not  slow,  and  perfectly  distinct.  The  opening  services 
are  somewhat  long,  but  informed  by  a  spirit  that  lifts 
them  above  tedium.  The  hymn  is  read  in  tones  that 
reveal  a  soul  that  vibrates  to  its  melody  and  thrills  to  its 
joy.  There  is  reverent  reading  of  the  Scriptures,  reading 
not  obtrusive  as  to  its  emphasis,  but  which  reveals  their 
meaning  and  conveys  their  power.  The  prayer  is  quiet, 
tender,  appealing,  a  strain  of  rapture  and  love  and  long- 
ing. And  now  the  sermon ;  from  the  beginning  it  is 
plain  that  it  is  to  serious  thought,  yes,  and  hard  think- 
ing that  you  are  invited.  The  preacher  has  taken  the 
philosopher  into  service;  at  need,  the  scholar's  stores 
are  brought  into  requisition;  rhetoric  contributes  of  its 
strength  and  grace.  In  his  manner  there  is  calmness: 
gestures  are  few,  speech  is  quiet.     It  is,  however,  a  calm- 


144  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

ness  at  the  surface  combined  with  fervors  in  the  depths, 
which  kindle  the  eye,  light  the  countenance,  and  which 
the  tones  reveal.  Here  is  no  logic-grinder,  but  a  soul 
swayed  by  a  holy  passion ;  and  these  thoughts  so  severely 
stated  are  a  prophet's  burden.  The  theme  is  laid  open ; 
the  awful  sanctities  are  made  plain ;  the  moral  depths  are 
explored ;  the  mystic  heights  are  gained.  In  America  a 
preacher  is  sometimes  told  that  his  service  has  been  en- 
tertaining; and  often  that  word  describes  it  well.  Dr. 
Martineau,  as  a  preacher,  never  entertains;  he  has  serious 
business  with  you,  and  to  the  consideration  of  that  he 
holds  you  with  little  thought  whether  he  entertain  or  no. 
You  have  been  living  in  some  castle  of  worldliness  or 
pride; — there  it  is  a  hopeless  debris  around  you,  and 
you  a  shivering  and  unsheltered  soul  in  the  bleak  desert 
of  the  world.  You  are  suffocated  with  the  dust  of  life ; 
you  are  borne  away  to  some  Alpine  summit  where  the 
air  is  free  and  a  glory  thrills  you.  You  came  hither,  as 
you  felt,  deserted  and  alone;  you  go  home  with  —  God  ! 

Such  the  preacher,  and  such  the  natural  effect  of  his 
great  message.  Yet  this  effect,  however  provided  for  in 
the  sermon,  was  only  for  such  as  could  receive  it,  who, 
we  fear  it  must  be  admitted,  were  the  comparatively  few. 
Dr.  Martineau  never  drew  large  congregations.  That 
manner,  so  wholly  undramatic,  was  little  calculated  to 
lay  a  spell  upon  the  popular  mind.  Then,  even  with  the 
manner  and  tones  of  Whitefield,  he  could  hardly  have 
drawn  the  multitude  with  such  sermons  as  he  habitually 
gave.  The  clever  interpreter  may  gather  hearers  from 
country  farms  or  city  streets,  and  beguile  them  with 
passages  of  Longfellow ;  but  Dante  with  whatever  acces- 
sories of  elocution  only  the  trained  intellect  can  receive ; 
and  Dr.  Martineau  in  heights  and  depths  may  fairly  be 
called  our  Dante  of  preachers.  To  some,  who  read  that 
the  common  people  heard  II im  gladly,  and  remember  how 


THE   PREACHER  I45 

common  and  uncommon  people  have  since  found  life  in 
His  word,  this  may  carry  the  force  of  an  adverse  criticism. 
In  the  experience  of  His  apostles,  however,  common  and 
uncommon  have  needed  to  be  treated  differently.  Cer- 
tainly the  discourses  in  the  Endeavors  and  the  Hours  of 
ThoitgJit  would  have  been  ill-suited  to  the  hillside  where 
Whitefield  preached ;  and  the  exhortations  that  brought 
the  colliers  to  repentance  would  have  evoked  but  a  feeble 
reponse  in  the  Hope  Street  Church  or  the  Little  Portland 
Street  Chapel. 

We  will  take  a  closer  scrutiny  of  the  sermon.  Of  its 
style,  considered  as  a  composition  and  with  reference  to 
pulpit  effectiveness,  it  is  possible  to  entertain  two  opin- 
ions. A  student  of  divinity,  in  an  American  school, 
opened  for  the  first  time  a  volume  of  the  Endeavors. 
Presently  he  was  in  a  realm  of  wonder.  Vision  opened 
upon  vision.  The  sentences  seemed  but  translucent  media 
for  stars  to  shine  through.  On  the  current  of  thought  he 
was  borne  almost  as  resistlessly  as  if  afloat  on  the  whirl- 
pool of  Niagara  River.  That  hour's  reading  brought  him 
in  contact  with  one  of  the  master  influences  of  his  life. 
He  closed  the  volume  with  a  feeling  not  unlike  that  of 
General  Wolfe,  floating  down  the  St.  Lawrence  River, 
reciting  the  immortal  Elegy.  A  few  days  later  the  student 
was  turning  over  a  sermon  of  his  own  with  the  homiletical 
professor,  when  conversation  led  to  the  general  subject 
of  sermon  style.  The  student  asked,  "  What  do  you  think 
of  the  style  of  Dr.  Martineau  ?  "  The  prompt  answer  was, 
"  The  worst  in  the  world."  The  student  went  his  way 
doubtful  for  once  of  his  professor's  infallibility.  Now, 
if  we  take  into  consideration  the  two  attitudes  of  mind, 
that  of  the  student  and  that  of  the  professor,  there  is  in 
Dr.  Martineau's  sermon  sufficient  reason  for  these  diverse 
judgments.  The  student,  in  daily  contact  with  studious 
books,  welcomed   a  challenge  to  his  thought  which  the 

10 


146  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

ordinary  sermon  was  not  sure  to  offer ;  was  well  pleased, 
indeed,  to  drink  the  wine  of  life  without  watery  dilution. 
Then,  being  of  an  imaginative  mind  and  mystic  tempera- 
ment, the  imaginative  and  mystic  features  he  everywhere 
met  in  Dr.  Martineau's  discourse  awoke  in  him  responsive 
raptures.  If  the  beauty  was  bewildering,  why,  it  was  a 
bewildering  beauty ;  if  the  heights  were  ethereal,  to  breathe 
ether  in  exchange  for  common  air  he  found  exhilarating ! 
The  professor,  however,  mindful  of  the  common  life  which 
the  preacher  must  somehow  reach,  of  men  who  must  come 
to  the  altar  from  the  plane,  the  forge,  the  farm,  the  shop, 
the  office ;  of  women  who  must  be  the  Marthas  of  domes- 
tic arrangement  before  as  Marys  they  can  sit  down  at  the 
feet  of  Jesus,  might  well  caution  his  pupil  against  a  style 
which  would  be  often  to  them,  at  best,  a  beautiful  bewilder- 
ment; and  if  the  caution  was  in  terms  the  strict  truth 
would  not  warrant,  why,  error,  like  wisdom,  may  some- 
times be  justified  of  her  children.  It  may  as  well  be  said 
that  Dr.  Martineau's  style,  even  for  people  of  high  intelli- 
gence, would  have  been  more  effective  if  something  less 
imaginative,  before  all  things,  could  he  have  restrained  his 
exuberant  use  of  metaphor.  His  beauties  are  exceedingly 
beautiful,  but  their  profusion  is  excessive.  You  linger  to 
admire  a  pearl  and  a  shower  of  diamonds  is  falling  around 
you.  Even  the  reader,  and  how  much  more  must  have 
been  the  listener,  is  often  bewildered  by  the  splendors  that 
in  swift  succession  burst  upon  him.  You  encounter  a  pas- 
sage like  this :  "  The  soul,  as  it  sings,  cannot  both  worship 
and  beat  time.  The  rainbow,  interpreted  by  the  prism,  is 
not  more  sacred,  than  when  it  was  taken  for  the  memoran- 
dum of  God's  promissory  mercy,  painting  the  access  and 
recess  of  his  thought.  The  holy  night,  that  shows  how 
much  more  the  sunshine  hides  than  it  reveals,  and  warns 
us  that  the  more  clearly  we  see  what  is  beneath  our  feet 
the  more  astonishing  is  our  blindness  to  what  is  above  our 


THE   PREACHER  I47 

heads,  is  less  divine,  when  watched  from  the  observatory 
of  science,  than  when  gazed  at  from  the  oratory  of  private 
prayer;  "  ^  you  are  surely  a  veteran  reader  if  you  are  not 
drawn  by  the  splendor  of  the  illustrations  from  the  thought 
they  illustrate.  Two  or  three  such  passages  in  a  sermon 
were  certainly  enough  for  the  trained  and  attentive  lis- 
tener; and  even  he  would  hardly  fail  to  find  it  difficult  to 
turn  at  once  from  such  a  series  of  pictures  to  resume  the 
thread  of  the  argument.  Passages  such  as  this  are  met 
everywhere  in  the  pages  of  Dr.  Martineau's  sermons.  To  be 
lost  amid  such  joys  may  not  be  without  compensations  ;  yet 
in  thought,  as  in  life,  to  lose  the  way  is  to  fail  of  the  destiny. 
Lost  in  a  garden  is  lost.     Lost  amid  Sierra  glories  is  lost. 

Another  aspect  of  his  discourses  calls  for  notice.  For 
the  ordinary  hearer  or  reader  they  are  found  difficult,  not 
only  because  of  their  highly  imaginative  style,  but  also 
because  of  a  uniqueness  in  their  structural  principle.  In 
an  important  respect  they  are  unlike  most  other  sermons, 
and  the  rules  of  the  commonly  received  homiletics  cannot 
be  applied  to  them.  You  ask  respecting  them,  with  what 
aim  were  they  preached,  what  motive  ruled  his  mind  in 
the  preparation  of  them?  You  see  very  clearly  why 
Edwards  preached  his  terrible  sermons :  there  before  him 
were  souls  to  save  from  the  hell  that  was  gaping  for  them. 
You  do  not  need  to  be  told  why  Channing  preached  his  ser- 
mon on  "  Unitarian  Christianity  most  Favorable  to  Piety;  " 
it  is  sufficiently  manifest  that  he  would  vindicate  a  form  of 
doctrine  which  was  dear  to  his  heart.  So,  in  general,  upon 
the  sermon  of  almost  every  preacher  is  impressed  the  pur- 
pose that  called  it  forth.  With  Dr.  Martineau's  sermons, 
however,  it  is  otherwise.  They  are  not  doctrinal :  what 
may  be  his  Christology,  what  his  attitude  towards  the 
Bible,  how  he  views  miracles,  why  he  is  a  Unitarian,  one 
must  be  a  sharp-eyed  critic  to  detect  in  his  pulpit  utter- 
^  Endeavors,  pp.  446-447,  American  edition. 


148  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

ances.  While  not  doctrinal,  neither  are  they,  in  the  ordi- 
nary sense  of  the  word,  practical.  Practical,  indeed,  they 
are,  as  fresh  air  and  sunshine,  as  art  and  music  and  poetry 
are  practical ;  but  not  practical  as  addressed  to  the  specific 
needs  of  men,  to  move  their  will  or  instruct  their  under- 
standing for  instant  action.  They  lead  into  the  realm  of 
elevated  thought,  which  may  be  to  our  souls  as  a  holy 
enchantment ;  yet,  however  they  may  nourish,  stimulate, 
comfort,  constrain  us,  we  hardly  feel  that  they  are  spoken 
to  us.  This  is  their  distinguishing  characteristic :  In  the 
intent  of  the  preacher  they  are  not  spoken  to  us.  Their 
aim  is  not  address,  but  self-utterance ;  not  primarily  to 
move  another's  soul,  but  to  tell  the  visions,  raptures,  long- 
ings, and  imperatives  within  his  own.  Spiritual  communi- 
cation in  the  deep  and  literal  meaning  of  the  word,  — that 
is  what  they  are  intended  to  be.  He  looks  not  about  his 
congregation  to  discover  what  they  have  need  to  hear,  but 
within  himself  to  find  what  God  has  given  him  to  say. 
There  is  hope,  indeed,  that  the  word  whispered  in  his  soul, 
through  his  utterance  may  reach  the  soul  of  another ;  it  is 
the  hope,  however,  of  the  artist  who  traces  his  beauty  on 
the  canvas,  trusting  that  another  may  thrill  to  its  joy. 
He  uses  the  ordinary  form  and  method  of  discourse,  and 
so  makes  into  a  sermon  what  were  otherwise  a  psalm. 
This  is  not  merely  a  characteristic  traced  upon  his  sermon  ; 
it  is  his  theory  as  to  the  method  in  which  a  sermon  should 
be  brought  forth.  In  the  preface  to  the  second  series  of 
Endeavors  he  writes :  "  In  virtue  of  the  close  affinity,  per- 
haps ultimate  identity,  of  religion  and  poetry,  preaching  is 
essentially  a  lyrical  expression  of  the  soul,  an  utterance  of 
meditation  in  sorrow,  hope,  love  and  joy,  from  a  represent- 
ative of  the  human  heart  in  its  divine  relations.  In  pro- 
portion as  we  quit  this  view,  and  prominently  introduce 
the  idea  of  a  preceptive  and  monitory  function,  we  retreat 
from  the  true  prophetic  interpretation  of  the  office  back 


THE  PREACHER  I49 

into  the  old  sacerdotal :  —  or  [what  is  not  perhaps  so 
different  a  distinction  as  it  may  appear]  from  the  prop- 
erly religions  to  the  simply  moral.  A  ministry  of  mere 
instruction  and  persuasion,  which  addresses  itself  prima- 
rily to  the  understanding  and  the  will,  which  deals  mainly 
with  facts  and  reasonings,  with  hopes  and  fears,  may  fur- 
nish us  with  the  expositions  of  the  lecture-room,  the  com- 
mandments of  the  altar,  the  casuistry  of  the  confessional ; 
but  it  falls  short  of  that  '  true  testimony  of  God,'  that  per- 
sonal effusion  of  conscience  and  affection,  which  distin- 
guishes the  reformed  preaeJiing  from  the  catholic  homily !' 
This  conception  of  the  true  nature  of  the  sermon  raises 
in  his  mind  an  objection  to  extemporaneous  preaching, 
"  which  may  be  the  vehicle  of  admirable  disquisitions, 
convincing  arguments,  impressive  speeches;  but  is  as 
little  likely  to  produce  a  genuine  sermon,  as  the  prac- 
tice of  improvising  to  produce  a  great  poem."  "  The 
thoughts  and  aspirations  which  look  direct  to  God,  and 
the  kindling  of  which  among  a  fraternity  of  men  con- 
stitutes social  worship,"  he  declares  to  be  "  natives  of 
solitude."  Such  is  his  theory  both  as  stated  and  exem- 
plified. There  comes  of  it  a  tendency  to  soliloquy,  to 
rhapsody,  beautiful  and  ennobling  indeed,  but  quite  the 
opposite  of  that  directness  of  speech  by  which  attention 
is  easiest  won  and  held. 

There  is  another  result  of  which  it  is  impossible  not 
to  be  sensible.  In  the  sermons  of  few  preachers  is  there 
so  little  lecturing ;  few  indeed  there  are  whose  organized 
thought  is  so  completely  a  vessel  in  which  the  spirit  is 
offered  us.  Sermons,  like  men,  must  have  the  defects  of 
their  qualities;  and  it  is  doubtful  if  they  can  be  the  oracles 
of  the  soul  and  at  the  same  time  always  easy  for  the  intel- 
lect to  grasp.  Pouring  out  the  heart  is  something  other 
than  addressing  the  understanding ;  psalm  and  homily  have 
different  qualities.     There  are  preachers  who  deftly  blend 


150  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

them,  as  Channing  usually,  as  Dewey  frequently,  as  Beecher 
occasionally.  But  so  far  as  the  homily  is  obtrusive  the 
psalm  will  be  sacrificed ;  so  far  as  the  psalm  is  overpower- 
ing the  homily  will  falter.  This  brings  us  to  the  doubt 
whether,  save  by  Dr.  Martineau's  method,  sermons  can  or- 
dinarily be  produced  so  profoundly  and  loftily  religious  as 
his.  We  give  them  place  with  the  classic  literature  of  de- 
votion ;  with  the  volumes  of  Tauler  and  Taylor  and  the 
Theologia  Gerinanica.  We  pass  from  any  of  these  to  the 
Hours  of  Thought  or  the  Ejideavors,  sensible  of  no  decline 
in  spiritual  altitude.  The  manner  is  different,  the  tone  is 
different ;  but  through  these,  as  those,  the  like  heights 
gleam,  the  like  raptures  thrill.  By  spiritual  consanguinity 
he  is  the  kinsman  of  Eckhart  and  Thomas  a  Kempis,  and 
draws  his  sermons  from  the  like  spring  as  they  their  medi- 
tations. In  him,  as  in  them,  is  the  mystic  soul,  out  of 
which  alone  the  mystic  utterance  can  come.  The  under- 
standing can  offer  what  is  understood,  the  reason  can  fur- 
nish reasons ;  and  thus  the  intellect  may  be  guided  into 
ways  that  shall  please  it  well ;  but  whoever  will  speak  the 
oracular  word  must  retire  within  the  shrine  where  oracles 
are  given.  This  secret  of  his  office.  Dr.  Martineau,  beyond 
all  contemporary  preachers,  seemed  to  know;  and  hence 
the  well-nigh  incomparable  appeal  with  which  his  words 
speak  home  to  us. 

From  the  general  character,  we  pass  to  the  more  special 
features  of  his  discourse.  Drawing  ever  from  the  deepest 
deeps,  he  naturally  seeks  utterance  through  the  treatment 
of  those  feelings  and  experiences  that  give  utterance  to  them, 
—  the  faiths,  dreads,  longings,  raptures,  of  men.  His  char- 
acteristic themes  are  suggestive :  "  The  Besetting  God," 
"Christian  Peace,"  "  The  Tides  of  the  Spirit,"  "The  Sor- 
rows of  Messiah,"  "Where  is  thy  God,"  "The  Discipline 
of  Darkness,"  "  Christ  the  Divine  Word."  They  are 
themes,  indeed,  on  which  the  mere  polemic  might  exer- 


THE   PREACHER  I5I 

cise  his  dexterity,  and  the  priest  expound  his  homily;  but 
which  are  pecuHarly  suited  to  the  mystic  contemplation 
which  Dr.  Martineau  brings  to  them. 

His  theory  of  a  sermon  implies  a  theory  of  man :  his 
competency  to  know  God.  Not  merely  to  know  of  him, 
but  to  have  immediate  acquaintance  with  him  ;  not  merely 
to  know  His  word,  but  to  hear  His  voice.  This  is  an  initial 
truth  with  him,  the  implications  of  which  are  manifold  and 
vast.  As  a  preacher,  he  dwells  much  on  the  immanence 
of  God,  but  before  God  is  seen  in  his  manifestations  he 
must  be  known  at  home.  Until  met  in  consciousness 
nature  cannot  reveal  him,  prophets  speak  to  little  purpose, 
Bible  records  are  a  tale  of  old.  And  this  immediate  ac- 
quaintance is  for  the  diligent  seeking,  —  not  with  the  lamp 
of  science,  which  would  restrict  it  to  the  learned ;  not  with 
the  eye  of  philosophy,  which  would  make  it  the  special 
privilege  of  the  wise;  but  in  the  silent  retreats  of  holy 
meditation,  which  are  accessible  to  all.  Here  we  may  come 
"  eye  to  eye  with  the  saints,  spirit  to  spirit  with  God,  peace 
to  peace  with  Heaven."  ^  Like  one  of  the  old  mystics  come 
again,  he  maintains  that  if  one,  putting  by  all  worldliness 
and  self-assertion  and  pride,  will  enter  the  silent  confes- 
sional within  his  breast,  he  shall  meet  and  know  his  God.^ 
The  earnestness  with  which  he  enjoins  this  impels  the  con- 
viction that  it  is  out  of  his  experience  that  he  enjoins  it. 
Thus  a  clue  to  a  truly  theistic  world  is  realized.  God  a  direct 
and  first-hand  acquaintance  in  the  breast ;  —  every  sod  of 
earth  reveals  him,  and  the  heavens  tell  his  glory.  You 
are  dealing  then,  not  with  a  cosmic  force,  but  with  a  liv- 
ing God,  known  within  yourself  and  therefore  recognized  in 
the  thrilling  life,  the  glowing  beauty,  the  unvarying  order, 
the  unbending  righteousness  of  the  world.  You  spend  with 
him  the  cloistered  hour,  then,  looking  out  upon  the  uni- 
verse, you  are  prepared  to  say,  "  Lo,  these  are  his  ways." 

^  Endeavors,  p.  164.  ^  /j/^/.  pp.  164-165. 


152  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

Let  the  order  be  ever  held  in  view :  first  the  interview  in 
the  confessional,  then  the  vision  of  a  transfigured  world ; 
first  within  the  soul  the  great  Name  whispered,  then  stars 
flame  it,  winds  quire  it,  waters  murmur  it;  first  the  assur- 
ance born  of  mystic  communion,  then  for  every  pain  its 
comforter,  for  every  sorrow  a  consoler  close  at  hand.  This 
again  and  again  he  urges,  lingering  in  eloquent  warning  on 
the  truth,  that  if  the  inward  eye  be  darkened  to  His  light 
the  outward  eye  shall  not  behold  His  glory.  You  shall  see 
no  transfiguration  till  acquainted  with  the  light  that  trans- 
figures, or  even  read  your  Bible  wisely  till  you  know  your 
God.  Our  Hght,  such  as  we  have,  we  carry  within  us;  and 
he  who  in  his  soul  knows  not  God  is  still  in  darkness, 
though,  "  like  the  angel  of  the  Apocalypse,  he  were  standing 
in  the  sun."  Hence  in  his  discourse  there  is  often  a  tone 
of  severity  towards  those  who,  neglecting  the  easy  and 
obvious  means,  do  thereby  forfeit  so  great  a  joy.  Their 
God,  such  as  they  have,  is  a  cosmic  force,  an  issue  of  a 
syllogism,  a  record  in  history,  a  priest's  report,  a  propriety 
of  beHef,  not  a  present  and  Hving  and  loving  Friend. 
Hence  he  remonstrates  :  "  You  say.  He  is  everywhere :  then 
show  me  anywhere  that  you  have  met  him.  You  declare 
him  everlasting :  then  tell  me  of  any  moment  that  he  has 
been  with  you."  ^  With  the  thought  of  thus  meeting  God 
in  the  confessional  there  comes  also  the  thought  of  spirit- 
ual fitness,  which  he  presses  with  solemn  earnestness.  To 
be  ready  for  that  august  interview,  what  is  required  of  us? 
A  mind  with  habitual  intent  upon  the  trivialities  of  life 
does  not  turn  with  ease  to  its  more  serious  concerns,  and 
with  the  spirit  it  is  the  same.  It  is  only  the  disciplined  eye 
that  shall  behold  the  Invisible  Presence ;  it  is  only  the  dis- 
ciplined ear  that  shall  hear  the  Silent  Word.  An  indolent, 
careless,  drifting  soul,  a  soul  from  which  all  earnestness  has 
oozed  away,  whose  meditation  is  but  a  disordered  reverie  or 

^  Hours  of  Thought,  second  series,  p.  107. 


THE   PREACHER  1 53 

a  vacant  dream,  —  what  fitness  can  it  have  to  hold  con- 
verse in  the  Holy  of  Holies?  For  that  mystic  meeting  it 
is  utterly  without  preparation.  So  he  tells  us  that  "  the 
heavens,  with  their  everlasting  faithfulness,  look  down  on 
no  sadder  contradiction  than  the  sluggard  and  the  slattern 
at  their  prayers." 

This  thought  of  the  immediateness  of  God's  presence, 
and  the  possibility  of  immediate  knowledge  of  him,  ever 
hovers  near  his  mind ;  and  he  iterates  it  and  reiterates  it 
with  great  power.  His  labor  is  to  bring  men  to  a  first- 
hand acquaintance  with  the  Father  of  their  spirits.  To 
this  end  he  strives  to  show  them  that  God  is  here,  not 
merely  there ;  that  He  is  as  well  as  was.  Not  that  he 
doubts  of  earlier  inspirations,  but  that  he  is  so  sensible  of 
the  need  of  new  ones.  He  sees  a  prevailing  tendency  to 
put  the  meeting  of  the  human  and  the  Divine  far  off  in  the 
past,  —  "there,  in  old  Palestine,  we  think,  the  august  voice 
broke  for  a  moment  the  eternal  silence,"  —  a  tendency 
which  means  for  the  present  an  atheistic  divorce  from 
God.  We  live,  indeed,  "in  the  house  He  built;  but  we 
work  in  it  alone,  for  He  has  gone  up  among  the  hills  and 
will  only  come  to  fetch  us  by-and-by."  Our  worship, 
therefore,  is  not  "  bathed  in  the  flowing  tides  of  Deity, 
but  keeps  dry  upon  the  strand  from  which  he  has  ebbed 
away."  "  It  has  become  a  covimemoration  telling  what 
once  He  was  to  happier  spirits  of  our  race,  and  how  grate- 
ful we  are  for  the  dear  old  messages  that  faintly  reach  our 
ear,  .  .  .  the  fragile  and  consecrated  links  between  his 
sphere  and  ours."  ^ 

Thus  he  pleads  for  what  is  with  him  the  ground  of  all 
conviction ;  and  thus  he  expostulates  with  those  —  the 
many,  not  the  few  —  who  fail  of  its  assurance. 

But  let  us  note  his  application  of  his  truth  to  the  prob- 
lems of  the  interior  life ;    and,  first,  that  of  duty.     It  is 

1  Endeavors,  p.  310. 


154  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

evident  that  with  such  thought  in  the  background,  he  will 
find  for  duty's  supreme  imperative  something  other  than 
an  earthly  origin.  Neither  the  utilities  of  life,  nor  any 
inferences  men  may  draw  from  them,  speak  to  him  the 
ultimate  word.  Nor  will  he  receive  it  from  any  Moses 
coming  down  from  Sinai ;  but  only  at  first-hand  in  the 
temple  where  the  Divine  Voice  declares  it.  So  persistent 
is  this  Voice,  so  constant  its  iterations,  that  even  the  inat- 
tentive ear  cannot  wholly  miss  its  tones.  In  the  pleadings 
of  virtue,  in  the  exaltations  of  self-sacrifice,  in  the  remon- 
strances of  conscience,  there  it  is.  Whoever  will  explore 
his  thought  on  the  great  problems  of  moral  obligation  in 
their  profounder  and  larger  statement  may  turn  to  the 
Types  of  Ethical  Theory  ;  but  whoever  will  see  how  in  his 
daily  conduct — his  weak  surrenders,  his  victorious  sacri- 
fices, the  virtues  that  attract  no  notice  and  the  faults  he 
tries  to  think  are  of  no  consequence  —  he  has  directly 
to  deal  with  God,  may  turn  to  his  sermons.  Your  duty, 
simple  and  lowly  as  men  may  regard  it,  in  the  last  account 
of  it,  is  a  mandate  from  the  Universal  Throne.  The  sense 
of  obligation  that  stirs  within  you  is  a  "  piercing  ray  of 
the  great  Orb  of  souls." 

To  what  heights  he  will  raise  duty,  with  what  sanctities 
he  will  clothe  it,  is  sufficiently  clear  from  this.  Rendered 
to  such  an  one,  its  lowlier  as  its  lordlier  offices  are  sacred, 
and  they  who  dust  the  chambers,  or  carry  the  brick  and 
mortar  of  the  world,  kindled  by  his  word,  should  feel  their 
humble  service  consecrate. 

From  duty  we  pass  to  worship.  As  the  former  in  its 
ultimate  spring  is  a  mandate  from  God,  so  the  latter  is  our 
free  offering  to  him.  In  its  nobler  conception  it  is  not 
addressed  to  a  heavenly  Dispenser  of  Favor,  but  to  a 
Righteousness  and  Love,  whom  we  meet  in  the  cloistered 
seclusion  of  our  souls.  Here,  not  merely  manifest  but  in 
very  essence  known,  we  contemplate  him  and  adore. 


THE  PREACHER  155 

Perhaps  there  is  no  other  theme  on  which  he  is  so  sure 
to  kindle  as  this.  Worship  is  the  soul's  "  surrender  of 
her  narrow  self-will,  her  prayer  to  be  merged  in  a  life 
diviner  than  her  own."  Of  all  attitudes  that  which  it 
implies  is  at  once  our  lowliest  and  our  loftiest.  "  We 
never  hide  ourselves  in  a  ravine  so  deep ;  yet  overhead 
we  never  see  the  stars  so  clear  and  high."  There  are  two 
promptings  to  it:  the  one  the  vision  of  Perfect  Holiness; 
the  other  the  sense  of  sin.  Hence  it  is  marked  by  a  two- 
fold aspect,  "  breaking  into  strains,  now  penitential  and 
now  jubilant,"  "  pale  with  weeping,  flushed  with  joy." 
"  Were  we  haunted  by  no  presence  of  sin  and  want,  we 
should  only  browse  on  the  pasture  of  nature :  were  we 
stirred  by  no  instinct  of  a  holier  kindred,  we  should  not 
be  drawn  towards  the  life  of  God."  A  little  deeper  does 
he  sink  his  plummet.  Speaking  of  the  communion  of  the 
human  spirit  with  the  Divine,  he  says :  "  If  communion, 
then  sympathy  and  resemblance  too :  for  like  only  can 
commune  with  like :  when  eye  meets  eye  and  knows  it, 
the  same  fire  is  alive  in  both :  when  affection  answers  to 
affection,  there  is  a  common  language  of  intelligence 
between  them ;  and  something  in  us  there  must  be,  some 
possible  love  or  thought  or  goodness,  akin  to  the  Infinite 
Perfection  and  flowing  forth  to  meet  it."  And  "  this  it  is 
—  this  best  element  of  us,  that  asserts  its  rights  and  strug- 
gles to  its  place  in  every  expression  of  religion."  "  Devo- 
tion " —  and  here  is  the  final  statement  —  "instinctively 
tries  to  lay  down  whatever  separates  from  God,  and  to  pass 
wholly  into  what  unites  with  him."  ^  Thus  it  is  the  soul  seek- 
ing her  own,  contemplating  the  Supreme  Beauty  and  yearn- 
ing for  its  embrace.  It  asks  no  special  favors,  —  ease, 
comfort,  the  poor  utilities  men  are  wont  to  pray  for;  it 
asks  only  to  be  merged  and  lost  in  God.  As  the  legend 
tells  us,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  once  wrestling  in  prayer  be- 

1  Hours  of  Thought,  second  series,  pp.  334-335- 


156  JAMES  MARTINEAU 

fore  the  crucifix,  the  imaged  Saviour  spoke  down  to  him : 
"Thou  hast  written  well  of  me,  Thomas;  what  reward 
wilt  thou  receive  from  me?"  The  ecstatic  saint  replied, 
"Lord,  only  thee." 

But  the  sense  of  sin  and  of  its  guilt,  how  of  this?  Of  all 
liberal  preachers  of  modern  days  he  has  perhaps  dwelt 
most  upon  this  dark  theme ;  and  he  has  taxed  his  won- 
drous rhetoric  to  make  his  lesson  vivid.  In  his  tone  on 
this  theme,  he  often  reminds  one  of  the  older  theologians. 
It  is  much  the  wont  of  our  modern  liberals  to  view  sin 
from  the  outlook  of  earth,  from  which  it  often  seems  much 
like  the  mistakes  of  ignorance,  the  blunders  of  immaturity. 
He,  on  the  contrary,  is  wont  to  view  it  from  the  outlook 
of  heaven,  where  it  is  seen  over  against  a  perfect  holiness 
which  it  has  affronted.  "If  I  had  not  come  and  spoken 
unto  them,  they  had  not  had  sin."  But  for  the  holiness 
that  confronts  us  our  sin  were  not  revealed  to  us.  In  that 
confrontation,  however,  we  are  like  the  lying  Peter  under 
the  eye  of  Jesus,  whose  pure  presence  is  a  mirror  to  our 
shame,  in  the  dark  consciousness  of  which  we  are  only 
capable  of  a  biting  and  burning  remorse,  never  mitigated, 
all  the  more  poignant,  for  the  sorrow  and  tenderness  with 
which  Jesus  looks  on  Peter.  Useless  to  plead  that  we 
could  not  have  done  otherwise ;  the  soul  by  its  very  grief 
and  humiliation  refuses  to  entertain  the  plea.  However 
the  intellect  may  sophisticate,  in  the  presence  of  that 
Holiness,  the  soul  is  sensible  of  the  dark  disparity,  wrought 
by  surrenders  it  has  not  made,  admonitions  it  has  not 
heeded,  beauties  within  its  reach  which  it  has  not  put  on. 
So  Dr.  Martineau  is  wont  to  preach.^  First  the  Holiness 
into  whose  presence  you  are  brought;  next,  by  contrast, 
the  approximations  to  it  which  you  have  not  made.  Here 
the  Perfect  Mirror ;  out  of  it  reflected  to  you  the  warts  and 

^  See  especially  "  Christ's  Treatment  of  Guilt,"  Endeavors,  p.  129;  "  The 
Soul's  Forecast  of  Retribution,"  Hours,  second  series,  p.  132. 


THE   PREACHER  1 57 

wens  that  disfigure  you.  Over  against  you,  the  Father 
robed  in  compassion  and  benignity,  which  make  you  sensi- 
ble of  the  unseemhness  of  the  rags  you  wear.  In  such  con- 
frontation what  more  natural  than  the  cry :  "  Oh  wretched 
man  that  I  am !  "  Hence  the  interpretation  he  gives  to 
those  protestations  of  unworthiness  in  which  all  higher 
literature  abounds,  and  which  are  characteristic,  not  of  the 
weakest,  but  of  the  best  and  bravest.  Modern  hberalism  is 
wont  to  treat  them  as  exaggerated  self-depreciation,  in  less 
enlightened  days  quite  the  vogue  of  religious  utterance,  now 
happily  gone  out  of  fashion,  Dr,  Martineau  sees  in  them 
the  spontaneous  and  natural  utterance  of  the  soul  in  the 
contemplation  of  the  Supreme  Excellence,  and  is  awed 
into  humiliation  before  it. 

But  the  problem  of  human  pain  —  how  of  that?  It  is 
one  Dr,  Martineau  recurs  to  perhaps  more  frequently  than 
any  other,  as  if  the  burden  of  human  suffering  were  heavy 
on  his  heart.  His  tone  is  not  one  of  extravagant  op- 
timism; he  does  not  commend  the  stoic's  endurance ;  his 
endeavor  ever  is  to  lift  the  suffering  into  "  conscious  affilia- 
tion with  God,"  Thus,  "  as  he  pervadeth  all  things,  a  unity 
is  imparted  to  life  and  a  stability  to  the  mind  which  put 
not  happiness,  indeed,  but  character  and  will  above  the 
reach  of  circumstance."  He  draws  illustration  from  the 
example  of  the  Christian's  exemplar :  "  What  difference 
did  it  make  to  Christ,  whether  in  the  wilderness  he  did 
fierce  battle  with  temptation  or  sat  on  the  green  slope  to 
teach  the  people,  and  send  them  home  as  if  God  had 
dropped  upon  their  hearts  amid  the  shades  of  evening : 
whether  he  stood  over  the  corpse,  and  looking  into  the 
dark  eyes,  said,  'Let  there  be  light,'  ...  or  saw  the  angel 
of  duty  approach  himself  in  the  dress  of  the  grave,  and  on 
the  mournful  whisper,  *  Come  away,'  tendered  his  hand 
and  was  meekly  led :  whether  his  walk  was  over  strewn 
flowers,  or  beneath  a  cross  too  heavy  to  be  borne ;  —  amid 


158  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

the  cries  of  '  Hosanna '  or  the  murderous  shout?  The 
difference  was  all  of  pain; — none  was  there  of  conscience, 
of  trust,  of  power,  of  love."  ^  It  is  to  the  like  self-poise, 
won  through  the  consciousness  of  the  Infinite  Presence, 
that  he  would  lead  the  suffering ;  —  not  to  any  mere  com- 
fort of  their  sorrows,  but  to  a  strength  through  him  who 
alone  can  impart  it,  serenely  and  patiently  to  bear  them. 
His  ideal  is  not  the  unsuffering,  but  the  unshaken  man ; 
and  such  he  may  be  with  whom  there  is  direct  and  per- 
sonal intimacy  with  God. 

Of  fear,  too,  when  the  crisis  comes,  the  same  prev^entive. 
In  his  sermon  on  "Faith  the  Deliverance  from  Fear,"  is  a 
remarkable  passage,  it  can  surely  be  no  mistake  to  quote 
in  full :  "  When,  for  instance,  the  ship  has  struck  and 
broken  up,  and  its  human  shriek  has  gurgled  away  into 
the  relentless  splash  of  waters ;  and  a  single  voyager,  by 
some  marvel  of  escape,  finds  himself  adrift  in  a  boat  alone  ; 
when  the  night  settles  down  upon  him  and  shuts  him  in 
between  the  darkness  above  and  the  black  deep  below; 
when  the  bursting  wind  and  the  slanting  hail  and  the 
plunging  waves  show  that  he  is  but  reserved  from  the  com- 
mon fate  to  perish  deliberately  and  in  the  private  wilds  of 
nature :  what,  think  you,  has  been  the  history  of  his 
thought  in  such  an  hour?  There  may  be  many  who 
might  await  the  moment  with  outward  steadfastness  ;  but 
only  one,  I  suppose,  who  would  sit  there  with  a  real  light 
of  inward  calm  ; — namely,  he  to  whom  that  solitude  was 
not  absolute  ;  who  could  converse  with  a  Presence  be- 
hind the  elements,  and  listen  to  a  voice  other  than  the 
wind's ;  who  knew  the  night  to  be  but  a  seeming  darkness, 
and,  though  the  stars  were  blotted  out,  felt  the  pure  eye 
of  the  Infinite  upon  him ;  who  could  welcome  the  terror, 
not  as  the  end,  but  as  a  beginning,  the  pangs  of  an  ever- 
lasting  birth.     Such  a  one   is  but   flung  by  the  wildest 

1  Endeavors,  p.  103. 


THE   PREACHER  I 59 

delirium  of  nature  into  the   closer  embrace  of  the  eter- 
nal God." 

Thus,  as  preacher,  may  we  illustrate  his  aim  and 
show  the  trend  of  his  influence.  By  such  preaching  it  is 
plain  that  he  could  hardly  have  grounded  men  in  the 
dogmatics  of  his  school ;  in  fact,  in  his  preaching  days, 
he  was  sometimes  criticised  for  failure  in  this  direction. 
The  priestly  homily  of  daily  behavior,  likewise,  you  will 
not  frequently  look  for  in  one  who  is  the  enthralled  oracle 
and  bard  of  such  truth.  His  leading,  rather,  is  to  a  con- 
templative and  mystic  piety.  The  atmosphere  you  breathe 
with  him  is  most  elastic,  the  views  he  opens  before  you 
are  most  expansive ;  yet  he  leads  you  to  live  directly  from 
the  Supreme  Source  of  life.  Under  his  spell  you  become 
an  habitii^  of  the  cloister;  you  learn  the  significance  of 
meditation,  of  communion,  of  prayer. 

Of  course  it  is  not  thought  that  the  lesson  thus  empha- 
sized by  him  is  in  form  any  novelty  in  the  Christian  pulpit. 
It  may,  however,  be  most  confidently  said,  that  the  per- 
suasiveness and  intense  and  burning  reality  with  which 
he  presents  it  give  his  sermon  a  place  which  probably 
that  of  no  other  modern  preacher  may  claim.  In  doubt, 
sin,  loss,  pain,  fear,  grief,  his  thrilling  admonition  is.  Seek 
the  presence  of  your  God. 

Seeking,  too,  you  shall  ever  find  him.  No,  not  ever; 
for  there  are  times  and  seasons  when  that  high  joy  is 
denied  us.  The  movements  of  the  spirit  are  tidal.  We 
repair  to  our  Bethesda,  but  the  angel  that  is  wont  to 
trouble  the  waters  has  not  come,  or  has  gone.  "  In  every 
earnest  life,  there  are  weary  flats  to  tread,  with  the  heavens 
out  of  sight,  —  no  sun,  no  moon  —  and  not  a  tint  of  light 
upon  the  path  below;  when  the  only  guidance  is  the 
faith  of  brighter  hours,  and  the  secret  Hand  we  are  too 
numb  and  dark  to  feel."  ^ 

^  "  Tides  of  the  Spirit,"  ffours  of  Thought,  first  series. 


l60  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

Frances  Power  Cobbe  pleasantly  tells  how  many  of  the 
congregation  that  listened  to  him  in  the  Little  Portland 
Street  Chapel  sat  with  open  note-books  to  jot  down  the 
brilliants  of  thought  that  fell  from  his  lips,  and  which  they 
could  not  suffer  to  float  away  upon  the  air.  Certainly,  if 
they  caught  them  all,  they  toiled  with  nimble  pencils. 
The  language  of  no  other  preacher  we  can  recall  has  such 
frequent  trick  of  running  into  poetic  aphorisms.  Emer- 
son himself  is  scarcely  more  quotable;  and  the  quotations 
that  cling  to  us  as  we  read  him  are  pregnant,  not  with  the 
wisdom  of  the  intellect  alone,  but  of  the  conscience  and 
the  soul.  In  the  pursuit  of  our  gains  or  pleasures  a  voice 
solemn  and  authoritative  commands,  "  Take  up  thy  free- 
will, and  come  along."  Is  there  a  cruel  cynicism  within 
you?  "No  grief  deserves  such  pity  as  the  hopeless 
privations  of  a  scornful  heart."  Elsewhere  and  further  on 
are  you  looking  for  associations  that  are  holy?  "  Those 
to  whom  the  earth  is  not  consecrated  will  find  their  heaven 
profane,"  For  the  proper  ordering  of  the  humblest 
duties,  great  principles  are  needed ;  "  to  keep  the  house 
of  the  soul  in  order  due  and  pure,  a  god  must  come  down 
and  dwell  within,  as  servant  of  all  its  work."  The  great 
achievements  which  we  honor  come  forth  from  vicissitude, 
without  which  history  were  a  dreary  commonplace  ;  a  truth 
which  he  states  in  brief,  "  There  is  no  Epic  of  the  cer- 
tainties." Are  you  haunted  by  a  pessimistic  misgiving? 
"  Be  it  ours  to  doubt  the  glooms  and  not  the  glory  of 
our  souls."  Are  you  troubled  by  the  inconstancy  of  your 
better  moods?  Be  comforted.  He  who  gave  to  the 
moon  her  phases  and  its  summer  and  winter  to  the  year, 
in  all  the  provinces  of  our  nature  has  appointed  the  like 
alternations.  "  God  has  so  arranged  the  chronometry  of 
our  spirits  that  there  shall  be  thousands  of  silent  moments 
between  the  striking  hours."  Such  are  specimens  of  the 
jewels  that  everywhere  adorn  his  page. 


THE   PREACHER  l6l 

Miss  Cobbe  likens  his  discourse,  not  to  an  "  Alpenstock," 
but  to  a  beautiful,  inlaid  "  crozicr."  An  Alpenstock  it 
rather  seems  to  us,  strong  to  lean  upon  in  the  most  ven- 
turous climbing,  yet  with  ruby  and  pearl  and  jasper  for 
accessories.  The  strength  is  surely  nowise  impaired  by 
the  beauty  that  adorns  it.  Where  it  ceases  to  be  Alpen- 
stock for  climbing  it  becomes  wings  for  flying,  on  which 
without  conscious  effort  we  gain  summits  far  more  than 
Alpine. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE  CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGIAN 

From  the  preacher  we  turn  to  the  theologian.  Dr.  Marti- 
neau's  theological  attitude  was  always  Unitarian ;  and  the 
history  of  English  Unitarianism  on  its  doctrinal  side  is 
almost  ideally  reflected  in  the  history  of  his  mind.  He 
received  it  as  its  earlier  prophets,  Priestley  and  Belsham, 
left  it;  and  early  became  the  pioneer  of  its  advance. 
From  the  Liverpool  Controversy  to  the  publication  of  the 
Seat  of  Authority ,  asking  where  Mr.  Martineau  stood  was 
very  nearly  the  same  as  asking  in  what  direction  Unita- 
rian thought  was  moving.  It  was  rarely  up  with  him,  but, 
often  with  manifest  impatience,  following  after  him. 

I.  The  history  of  a  moving  intellect,  and  none  other 
can  have  a  history,  must  be  a  record  of  changes.  Of  Dr. 
Martineau,  the  theologian,  therefore,  our  task  requires 
that  we  undertake  such  a  record.  We  have  seen  where 
he  began.  The  services  of  his  ordination  reflect  the  atti- 
tude of  the  church  that  ordained  him ;  and  his,  beyond 
the  shadow  of  a  doubt,  was  in  all  essentials  an  accordant 
mind.  The  conservatism  that  would  fain  hold  liberal  views 
under  ban  at  Andover  or  Columbia  would  be  more  than  sat- 
isfied were  the  out-going  students  assuredly  no  further  away 
from  orthodox  standards.  There  was  a  God,  the  Creator 
of  all  things,  infinitely  powerful,  wise,  and  holy ;  and  if  the 
close  student  may  see  reason  to  suspect  that  eighteenth- 
century  Deism  colored  the  general  conception  of  him, 
why,  so  it  does  that  of  many  an  orthodox  preacher  even 


THE   CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGIAN  163 

now.  The  Bible  was  given  by  inspiration,  and,  rightly 
interpreted,  an  unerring  guide.  Christ  was  a  divinely 
appointed  teacher,  whose  commission  was  authenticated 
by  miracles;  who  came  by  his  teaching,  life,  death,  —  pre- 
eminently by  his  death,  —  to  provide  salvation  for  mankind. 
Christian  discipleship  could  be  allowed  to  those  only  who 
could  thus  receive  him.  There  was  also  a  judgment  to 
come,  of  which  heaven  and  hell  were  the  issues.  To  read- 
ers who  have  orthodox  traditions  these  statements  look 
familiar  enough,  and  they  are  likely  to  ask  how  they  who 
could  consistently  make  them  could  have  been  held  unortho- 
dox. The  point  of  departure  from  the  orthodox  standards 
in  the  declarations  of  this  hour,  which  the  trained  theolo- 
gian may  detect  but  scarce  any  other,  was  in  the  concep- 
tion of  Christ.  This  departure  was  not  on  the  view  of  his 
character,  his  powers,  his  office,  or  the  reverent  and  loving 
fealty  due  him ;  but,  in  the  supreme  and  metaphysical 
meaning  of  the  word,  of  his  nature.  What  say  you  of  Christ, 
—  was  he  simply  man?  Had  this  question  been  asked 
him  by  the  council,  Mr.  Martineau  would  have  answered 
unequivocally  710.  Was  he  very  God?  Again  the  answer 
would  have  been  fw.  There  was  for  him,  then,  only  a  mid- 
way conception  of  a  nature  more  than  man,  yet  a  created 
nature,  and  so,  far  less  than  God :  a  divine  nature  poised 
between  the  two.  Mr.  Martineau  has  himself  told  us  that 
the  "  departure  from  the  orthodox  Confession  of  Faith 
went  no  further  than  Arianism  ;  "  and  he  adds  that  "  so 
resolute  was  the  aversion  to  any  further  step,  that,  on  let- 
ting fall  an  expression  implying  the  simple  humanity  of 
Christ,  I  had  lost  in  Dublin  the  most  attached  friend  I  had 
among  my  hearers,  who  took  his  household  away  from  me 
with    lamentation    and    tears."  ^     Now,    Arianism,   though 

^  A  Spiritual  Faith,  Memorial  Preface,  p.  viii.  It  may  be  well  to  remem- 
ber that  the  pioneers  of  English  Unitarianism  —  Lindsey,  Lardner,  and  Priest- 
ley—  had  several  years  before  this  event  reached  a  Humanitarian  view. 


164  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

often  enough  embraced,  has  never  been  a  stable  doctrine. 
The  being  more  than  man,  less  than  God,  is  reasonably- 
sure  to  be  surrendered  to  one  or  the  other.  Either  he  will 
be  lifted  into  Deity,  and  so  orthodox  faith  be  triumphant, 
or  he  will  be  brought  down  to  man,  with  the  surrender  of 
everything  distinctively  orthodox.  Reasoning  from  expe- 
rience, we  should  say  that  Mr.  Martineau  and  his  fellow- 
believers  must  either  retreat  from  their  Arianism  or  go 
forward  to  Humanitarianism,  with  the  probabilities  much 
in  favor  of  the  latter. 

But  there  is  another  feature  of  their  case  that  needs  to 
be  kept  in  mind.  These  Presbyterians  —  we  have  already 
noticed  that  it  was  as  an  English  Presbyterian  that  Mr. 
Martineau  was  ordained  —  were  without  a  creed.  As  their 
doctrinal  standard  they  accepted  simply  the  Bible ;  and 
they  adopted  with  it,  in  the  broadest  meaning  of  the  word, 
the  Protestant  principle  of  free  interpretation.  To  be  sure, 
there  was  an  understanding  that  the  free  mind  would  "  orb 
about  "  within  the  Bible  ;  that  while  searching  for  its  con- 
tents it  would  never  question  its  authority.  The  free  m.ind, 
however,  cannot  stipulate  thus  to  behave.  Freedom  to 
find  truth  in  Matthew  must  imply  freedom  to  detect  error 
in  Paul  ;  freedom  to  inquire  with  result  in  any  sense  pre- 
determined :  freedom  to  find  the  contents  of  a  book,  yet 
freedom  only  to  find  them  true,  may  be  to  some  a  pleasant 
ideal,  but  it  is  one  on  which  experience  has  bestowed  no 
continuous  smile.  So  much  freedom  is  always  perilous  to 
such  limitation.  The  Mississippi  is  only  kept  to  its  channel 
as  the  banks  are  high  or  the  levees  strong.  The  Protes- 
tant principle  has  a  noble  sound  ;  yet  Protestant  wisdom 
has  prevailingly  imposed  upon  it  the  restraints  of  creeds, 
that  its  rising  floods  may  not  spread  too  wide.  It  is  not 
probable  that  an  intellect  so  restless  and  so  virile  as  Mr. 
Martineau 's  could  have  been  held  long  within  any  barriers, 
and  the  stronger  they  had  been  the  more  disaster  in  their 


THE   CHRISTIAN   THEOLOGIAN  1 65 

breach.  As  it  was,  not  only  was  the  central  doctrine  of 
the  faith  an  unstable  one,  but,  save  in  a  prevailing  senti- 
ment of  those  about  him,  there  was  no  restraint  at  all  upon 
his  intellectual  movement.  As  was  natural,  therefore,  fol- 
lowing his  own  self-directing,  he  very  early  began  —  at 
first  we  may  well  believe  insensibly  —  to  depart  from  the 
standard  of  his  ordination  confession.  How  much  was 
really  conveyed  in  the  "  expression  implying  the  simple 
humanity  of  Christ"  cannot  now  be  shown;  and  it  is  not 
difficult  to  see  how  to  his  own  mind  it  may  not  have  seemed 
dissonant  with  the  Arianism  of  his  church.  But  it  is  also 
possible  that  his  friend  detected  in  him  a  real  departure 
from  the  faith  unsuspected  by  himself,  just  as  several  years 
later  his  greater  friend,  John  Stuart  Mill,  detected  his  de- 
parture from  the  Necessarian  philosophy  to  which  he  still 
supposed  himself  a  faithful  adherent.  Our  initial  aposta- 
sies we  are  by  no  means  sure  to  be  the  first  to  discover. 

Other  evidences  are  not  wanting  that  his  mind  was 
early  in  motion.  The  doctrines  of  the  faith  he  took  up 
as  fresh  problems,  of  which,  not  content  with  received 
opinion,  he  would  achieve  a  first-hand  conviction ;  and 
the  vigorous  intellect  that  does  thus  is  reasonably  sure  to 
depart  somewhere  from  the  standards.  Very  early,  too, 
a  new  and  peculiar  influence  flowed  into  his  life,  which, 
in  any  adequate  account  of  his  mental  history,  would 
require  an  ample  page.  It  was  the  influence  of  Chan- 
ning.  We  of  later  birth  sometimes  wonder  how  Chan- 
ning's  influence  could  have  been  so  regal.  We  look  into 
his  books ;  there  indeed  is  the  quiet  and  transparent 
style,  fit  vehicle  of  the  noblest  wisdom ;  there  is  the 
organism  of  thought,  in  its  wholeness  so  complete,  so 
articulated  part  with  part;  there  are  the  moral  impera- 
tives, the  spiritual  insights,  the  spiritual  raptures,  all  cal- 
culated in  their  immediate  effect  to  constrain,  to  comfort, 
to  awaken  and  inspire.     But  the  thought  is  so  old  that  it 


1 66  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

is  difficult  to  realize  that  it  once  was  new;  it  is  with  effort 
that  we  remember  that  it  is  now  so  familiar  and  every-day, 
only  because  it  has  so  permeated  and  leavened  the  think- 
ing of  our  time ;  because  newspaper,  essay,  sermon,  novel, 
poem,  —  read  in  its  light,  too,  the  New  Testament  and  the 
Old,  reflect  it  to  us.  To  the  contemporaries  of  Channing, 
however,  it  came  with  the  glory  of  a  fresh  inspiration. 
It  lifted  them  into  another  plane  of  feeling,  in  which  the 
past  lay  in  another  perspective  and  the  future  glowed 
with  another  prophecy.  Of  this  influence  no  one  was 
more  profoundly  sensible  than  Mr.  Martineau.  The 
memorable  discourses,  preached  at  Baltimore  in  1819 
and  in  New  York  in  1826,  reached  Ireland  just  before  he 
entered  upon  his  ministry.  Writing  of  his  friend,  John 
Hamilton  Thom,  then  a  young  clergyman  at  Belfast,  he 
quotes  from  him  words  that  might  do  quite  as  well  for  him- 
self: "  Others  had  taught  me  much ;  no  one  before  had  un- 
sealed the  fountain  in  myself.  He  was  the  first  to  touch 
the  spring  of  living  water,  and  make  me  independent  even 
of  himself."^  Like  testimony  to  his  own  measureless  debt 
to  Channing  Dr.  Martineau  bore  to  the  present  writer, 
when  from  the  summit  of  his  octogenarian  years  he  helped 
him  to  a  survey  of  that  bright  morning  of  his  career. 

From  his  ordination  confession  he  hardly  comes  dis- 
tinctly before  us  as  a  theologian  until  1835,  the  year 
before  the  appearance  of  the  Rationale  of  Religioiis  In- 
quiry. In  the  January  of  that  year  he  preached  a  sermon 
on  the  occasion  of  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  Manchester 
New  College,^  near  the  close  of  which  he  says :  "  The 
plenary  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  was  once  an  admitted 
tenet  among  our  Churches.  It  was  supposed  that  the 
evangelical  authors  performed  only  the  mechanical  process 

1  A  spiritual  Faith  ^y\.t.xx\ox\?i\  Preface,  p.  x. 

'^  "  Need  of  Culture  for  the  Christian  Ministry."  Reprinted  in  Essays, 
Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  iv. 


THE   CHRISTIAN   THEOLOGIAN  1 6/ 

of  writing,  and  were,  in  fact,  but  amanuenses  to  the  dic- 
tation of  the  Holy  Spirit.  .  .  .  All  this  is  now  changed. 
The  tendency  among  us  [a  tendency  not,  I  think,  likely 
to  be  arrested]  is  towards  the  belief  that  the  Sacred  Writ- 
ings are  perfectly  human  in  their  origin,  though  recording 
superhuman  events ;  that  the  Epistles  abound  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  questions  now  obsolete ;  that  the  Gospels,  with 
one  exception,  were  constructed  from  earlier  documents, 
whose  origin  it  is  impossible  to  trace,  and  whose  fidelity 
rests  upon  their  internal  character ;  that  even  their  precep- 
tive parts  will  not  yield  the  Christian  morality  pure  to  our 
hands,  till  a  mass  of  local  and  temporary  elements  have 
been  withdrawn."  The  cast  of  this  passage  makes  it  plain 
that  while  the  more  orthodox  view  had  once  prevailed  in 
the  liberal  ranks,  it  had  not  recently  done  so,  which  is  of 
course  nearly  the  same  as  saying  that  it  was  not  prevail- 
ing at  the  time  of  the  ordination  confession.  Indeed, 
Unitarians,  while  very  stoutly  maintaining  inspiration, 
very  early  conceived  it  to  be  found  in  the  deeper  mean- 
ing of  the  Sacred  Writings,  not  in  the  form  of  their  struc- 
ture. They  held  it  to  be  spiritual,  not  mechanical.  And 
when  we  come  to  the  Ratio7iale  we  only  meet  in  more 
elaborate  statement  the  same  general  attitude.  Its  judg- 
ment of  the  New  Testament  books  is  that  "  they  are 
perfectly  human,  though  recording  superhuman  events; 
that  they  were  written  by  good  and  competent  men,  who 
reported  from  their  own  memory,  reasoned  from  their 
own  intellect;  who  received  impressions  modified  by 
their  own  imagination ;  who  interpreted  the  ancient 
scriptures  by  their  own  rules,  and  retained  the  notions  of 
philosophy  which  they  had  been  taught,  and  of  morals 
which  approved  themselves  to  their  own  conscience. 
They  saw  and  felt  what  they  wrote,  and  they  wrote  truly."  ^ 
During  the  eight  years  since  his  ordination  he  has  grown 

^  Third  edition,  p.  lo. 


1 68  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

much,  but  his  faith  has  undergone  no  marked  transition. 
He  is  bold  and  aggressive,  and  given  to  extreme  compari- 
sons ;  yet  he  is  safely  within  the  lines  of  earlier  and  more 
conservative  Unitarianism.  His  attitude  towards  the  Bible, 
if  that  of  a  freeman,  is  yet  most  reverent ;  Christ  is  the 
central  orb  of  his  system;  title  to  the  Christian  name 
implies,  not  merely  acceptance  of  him,  but  acceptance 
of  him  as  a  supernatural  being,  together  with  the  wonders 
accredited  to  him.^  This  position,  called  in  question  by 
some  of  more  radical  mind,  he  defends  in  the  preface 
to  the  second  edition,  and  qualifies  rather  than  departs 
from  in  the  preface  to  the  third  edition,  which  appeared 
in  1845.  The  ruling  contention  of  the  book  is  for  Ration- 
alism against  Orthodoxy,  —  against  Orthodoxy  in  that  it 
*'  makes  belief  a  duty  of  the  Will,  and  judges  men  by  their 
creed;  "  for  Rationalism  in  that  it  makes  belief  an  "invol- 
untary act  of  the  Understanding,  and  judges  them  by 
their  character,"  ^  —  and  in  this  contention  he  is  fervid, 
cogent,  and  convincing.  Reply,  however,  might  have 
been  made  to  him,  which  his  own  later  experience  should 
have  verified,  that  the  reason  that  assumes  to  judge  in- 
spiration will  anon  usurp  the  throne  of  authority. 

We  come  now  to  the  period  of  the  Liverpool  Contro- 
versy, an  event  that  summoned  him  to  declare  his  mind  on 
a  variety  of  themes  in  a  somewhat  careful  and  elaborate 
manner.  The  preliminary  correspondence,  as  we  have 
seen,  came  to  a  sudden  termination  in  consequence  of  the 
Unitarian  party's  refusal  to  justify  their  position  by  the 
whole  Bible  as  the  "  Word  of  God."  "  We  all  drew  our 
religious  faith,"  says  he,  "  from  the  Word  of  Christ."  ^ 
This  was  a  very  marked  departure  from  the  standard  of 
the  confession ;  and  while  there  are  passages  in  the  Ra- 

1  Rationale  of  Religions  Inquiry,  p.  70. 

2  Preface  to  second  edition,  pp.  viii-ix. 

'  A  Spiritual  Faitk,'b'iemox\d.\  Preface,  p.  xiii. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGIAN  1 69 

tionale  that  may  foreshadow  such  an  attitude,  it  is  not 
probable  that  he  would  have  taken  it,  had  the  like  exi- 
gency arisen  at  the  time  that  book  was  printed.  But 
personally  he  had  gone  further  than  this.  All  drew  their 
religious  faith  from  the  "  Word  of  Christ;  "  but  what  was 
that  "  Word  "  ?  "  While,"  says  he,  "  Mr.  Thom  found  that 
Word  in  every  saying  which  any  Evangelist  ascribed 
to  him,  I  could  not  refer  the  Johannine  discourses  to  the 
speaker  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  or  help  feeling,  in 
the  very  differences  of  the  Synoptic  reports,  limits  to  their 
authenticity,  not  without  traces  of  later  thought."  ^  How 
long  he  has  been  coming  to  this  position  he  does  not  tell 
us,  nor  by  what  influences  he  has  been  guided ;  but  it  is 
plain  that  he  has  entered  upon  the  way  of  which  the 
Tubingen  school  and  the  Scat  of  Authority  will  be  the 
issue. 

To  fix  his  attitude  at  this  time  more  definitely,  we  will 
briefly  follow  him  through  his  several  contributions  to  this 
Controversy.  His  first  theme  was  "  The  Bible  :  What  it  is, 
and  What  it  is  not."  In  this  discussion  the  conception  of 
a  spiritual  inspiration  as  opposed  to  a  plenary  and  mechan- 
ical, "  as  much  higher  than  your  cold,  dogmatical,  scien- 
tific inspiration,  as  the  intuitions  of  conscience  are  higher 
than  the  predications  of  logic,  and  the  free  spirit  of  God, 
than  the  petty  precision  of  men,"  ^  rules  all  his  reasoning. 
This  "great  autobiography  of  human  nature"  —  such  he 
calls  the  Bible  —  is  the  "  Word  o{  God,"  but  —  a  distinc- 
tion at  which  spirits  were  troubled  sixty-one  years  ago, — 
not  the  "  Words  of  God."  His  teaching  was  that  while  the 
spirit  of  God  moved  upon  the  souls  of  the  Bible  writers, 
their  understandings  were  left  uncontrolled  to  use  such 
language  as  they  would,  to  group  events  as  they  might,  to 

^  A  Spiritual  Faith,  p.  xiii. 

2  Letter  to  Rev.  H.  McNeile  and  others,  "  Unitarianism  Defended," 
Correspondence^   p.   41. 


170  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

weave  their  own  moral  sentiments  into  the  narrative  of 
them,  to  drav/  their  own  inferences  from  them,  to  give 
them  a  color,  not  always  of  exactest  verisimilitude,  from 
what  was  local  and  peculiar  to  their  time.  The  inspiration 
is  met  in  the  constant  yet  progressive  lesson  of  the  infinite 
power,  the  unerring  wisdom,  the  unbending  righteousness, 
the  constant  providence,  the  unvarying  love  of  God.  This 
it  is  that  the  Word  of  God  proclaims,  but  through  the 
words  of  men.  But  in  this  record  of  inspirations  where  is 
the  culminating  point?  Why,  in  him  of  Nazareth.  "He 
is  the  central  object,  around  whom  all  the  ages  and  events 
of  the  Bible  are  but  an  outlying  circumference;  and  when 
they  have  brought  us  to  this  place  of  repose,  to  return 
upon  them  again  were  but  an  idle  wandering."  ^  To  Christ 
he  looked  in  the  spirit  of  most  reverent  discipleship  as  one 
whom  God  had  endowed  with  a  far  surpassing  grace,  and 
in  whose  utterance  his  Word  became  articulate  as  in  that 
of  none  other.  It  had  for  him,  too,  this  peculiarity,  that  it 
"  plunges  us  into  the  feeling,  that  God  acts  not  there,  but 
here ;  not  was  once,  but  is  now  ;  dwells  not  witJioiit  ns,  like 
a  dreadful  sentinel,  but  within  ns  as  a  heavenly  spirit,  be- 
friending us  in  weakness,  and  bracing  us  for  conflict." 
"  The  inspiration  of  Christ,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  is  not 
any  solitary,  barren,  incommunicable  prodigy ;  but  dif- 
fusive, creative,  vivifying  as  the  energy  of  God :  —  not 
gathered  up  and  concentrated  in  himself,  as  an  object  of 
distant  wonder;  but  reproducing  itself,  though  in  fainter 
forms,  in  the  faithful  hearts  to  which  it  spreads."^  He 
surely  is  wanting  in  sensibility  who,  reading  these  words, 
detects  no  heart-throbs  in  them. 

His  evidence  of  inspiration  is  thus  even  at  this  early  day 
not  external,  but  internal ;  not  in  the  letter  of  the  Sacred 
Volume,  whose  inaccuracies  he  points  out  in  long  detail, 
but  in  its  spirit.     But  how  of  miracles?     Mr.  Martineau 

1  p.  4.  -  p.  7- 


THE   CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGIAN  I /I 

believed  in  miracles,  at  any  rate  the  miracles  of  Christ. 
From  the  prevailing  view  of  them,  however,  he  takes  a  wide 
departure.  The  miracle,  as  he  holds,  can  prove  nothing 
true  that  is  intrinsically  incredible.  "  If,  before  your 
eyes,"  says  he,  "  a  person  were  to  multiply  five  loaves 
into  five  hundred,  and  then  say  '  this  is  to  prove  the  doc- 
trines which  I  teach,  that  God  is  malignant,  and  that  there 
is  no  heaven  after  death,'  —  should  you  be  converted,  and 
follow  him  as  a  disciple?  Certainly  not;  the  statement 
being  incredible,  the  miracle  would  be  powerless.  And 
the  inference  I  would  draw  is  this :  that  the  primitive 
force  of  persuasion  lies  in  the  moral  doctrine  as  estimated 
by  our  reason  and  conscience,  not  in  the  preternatural  act 
displayed  before  our  senses."  ^  What  then  is  the  signifi- 
cance of  Christ's  miracles?  In  answer  he  says,  and  his 
language  conveys  a  doctrine  that  early  Unitarians  struggled 
hard  to  establish,  "  His  miracles,  surely,  sprung  from  com- 
passionate, not  proselytizing  impulses  ;  had  a  practical,  not 
a  didactic  air;  were  not  formally  wrought  as  preliminaries 
to  a  discourse,  but  spontaneously  issued  from  the  quietude 
of  pity;  they  were  not  syllogisms,  but  mercies."  2  Another 
very  current  conception  of  miracles  calls  forth  his  protest. 
A  year  and  a  half  earlier,  Emerson  had  spoken  of  them  as 
"  one  with  the  blowing  clover  and  the  falling  rain ;  "  and 
somewhat  thus  Mr.  Martineau  regarded  them.  A  preva- 
lent habit  of  thought  then,  and  we  should  not  need  to  look 
far  to  find  it  now,  placed  them  in  another  category,  and 
gave  them  another  sanctity.  "  The  falling  rain  "  ?  Why, 
that  follows  upon  the  laws  of  nature,  decreed  when  the 
world  began.  This  miracle,  on  the  contrary,  is  the 
immediate  action  of  God,  and  is  a  token  of  his  presence 
and  his  will.  Against  this  Mr.  Martineau  inveighs :  "  In 
whatever  form  it  is  expressed,  it  rests  upon  a  postulate 
which  I  hold  to  be  false  and  irreligious;  viz.,  that  the 
1  p.  25.  "^  pp-  24-25. 


172  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

supernatural  is  Divine,  the  natural  not  Divine;  that  God 
did  the  miracles,  and  since  the  creation  has  done  nothing 
else ;  that  Heaven  gave  a  mission  to  those  whom  it  thus 
endowed,  and  has  given  no  mission  to  those  who  are 
otherwise  endowed.  All  peculiar  consecration  of  miracle 
is  obtained  by  a  precisely  proportioned  desecration  of 
nature."  ^  Here  is  obviously  no  attempt  to  depreciate 
miracle,  but  a  desire  to  give  to  the  operations  of  nature  the 
like  sanctity.  His  was  not  at  all  the  deistical  doctrine  which 
divorces  God  from  immediate  relation  with  the  universe, 
but  the  theistic  conception  that  makes  him  immanent  in 
its  life,  and  so  regards  the  miracle  but  the  peculiar  exer- 
cise of  an  Energy  of  which  "  blowing  clover  and  falling 
rain "  are  manifestations.  He  does  not  question  the 
exceptional,  but  would  consecrate  the  familiar.  It  seems 
difficult  to  detect  a  heresy  here,  yet  meditated  in  relation 
with  a  later  attitude,  it  is  difficult  not  to  feel  that  the  "  way 
which  they  call  heresy  "  is  entered  upon.  He  would  hold 
the  familiar  as  sacred  as  the  strange ;  but  before  the  publi- 
cation of  the  second  series  oi  Endeavors,  seven  years  later, 
he  will  prefer  the  "  customs  of  heaven  "  to  the  "  anoma- 
lies," "  the  dear  old  ways,  of  which  the  Most  High  is  never 
tired,"  to  the  "  strange  things  which  he  does  not  love  well 
enough  ever  to  repeat."^  One  more  stadium,  and  from  his 
preference  for  the  "  customs  of  heaven"  he  will  discard  the 
"  anomalies." 

Mr.  Martineau's  second  contribution  to  this  Controversy 
was  an  elaborate  disproof  of  the  proposition  that  "  Christ 
was  God."  Here  his  attitude  is  negative,  and  his  own 
view  of  Christ  is  not  made  prominent.  Towards  the  close, 
however,  he  makes  this  striking  statement:  "Jesus  Christ 
of  Nazareth,  God  has  presented  to  us  simply  in  his  inspired 
humanity.     Him  we  accept,  not  indeed  as  very  God,  but 

1  p.  24. 

2  Endeavors  after  the  Christian  Life,  p.  311,  American  edition. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGIAN  1 73 

as  the  true  image  of  God,  commissioned  to  show  what  no 
written  doctrinal  record  could  declare,  the  entire  moral 
perfections  of  Deity,  We  accept,  —  not  indeed  his  body, 
not  the  struggles  of  his  sensitive  nature,  not  the  travail  of 
his  soul,  but  his  purity,  his  tenderness,  his  absolute  devo- 
tion to  the  great  idea  of  right,  his  patient  and  com- 
passionate warfare  against  misery  and  guilt,  as  the  most 
distinct  and  beautiful  expression  of  the  Divine  mind."  ^ 
Enough  surely  for  spiritual  affinity,  but  too  fluid  and 
indefinite  for  dogma. 

His  third  lecture  dealt  with  the  "  Scheme  of  Vicarious 
Redemption."  This  was  perhaps  his  crowning  effort  in 
this  Controversy.  Of  course  all  turns  on  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  death  of  Christ ;  so  with  a  few  vivid  strokes  he 
places  before  us  the  scene  of  the  Crucifixion,  and  then  asks 
what  this  means.  The  first  impression  is  that  it  "  requires 
no  interpretation,  but  speaks  for  itself;  that  it  has  no  mys- 
tery, except  that  which  belongs  to  the  triumphs  of  deep 
guilt,  and  the  sanctities  of  disinterested  love ;  "  and  with 
this  view  he  is  content.  He  conceives  the  death  of  Christ 
as  "  manifesting  the  last  degree  of  moral  perfection  in  the 
Holy  One  of  God  ;  "  and  believes  that  "  in  thus  being  an 
expression  of  character,  it  has  its  primary  and  everlasting 
value,"  He  conceives  it  as  "immediately  procuring  the 
universality  and  spirituality  of  the  Gospel ;  by  dissolving 
those  corporeal  ties  which  give  nationality  to  Jesus,  and 
making  him,  in  his  heavenly  and  immortal  form,  the  Mes- 
siah of  humanity,"  ^  The  natural  features  of  the  Cruci- 
fixion, however,  he  is  told  present  only  the  **  mere  outside 
aspect ;  "  that  they  are  "  wholly  insignificant  compared 
with  the  invisible  character  and  relations  of  the  scene ; 
which,  localized  only  on  earth,  has  its  chief  effect  in  Hell ; 
and  though  presenting  itself  among  the  occurrences  of 
time,  is  a  repeal  of  the  decretals  of  Eternity,"     Thus  he 

1  p.  57-  ^  PP-  5-6- 


174  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

glides  into  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  summoning 
philosophy  and  Scripture  to  testify  against  it;  and  in  his 
powerful  exposition  they  testify  as  they  have  seldom  testi- 
fied. His  philosophical  argument  is  the  most  impressive, 
as  probably  the  most  congenial  to  his  mind,  but  his  Bibli- 
cal is  remarkable  for  its  completeness.  There  is  not  a 
prominent  consideration  ever  deduced  from  the  Sacred 
Text  in  support  of  the  doctrine,  that  he  does  not  frankly 
challenge.  The  issue  is  such  as  we  should  anticipate :  the 
death  of  Christ  is  spoiled  of  its  dogmatic  significance. 
Here  is  no  God  enduring  an  infinite  penalty,  but  a  man 
divinely  appointed  to  show  forth  the  measureless  love  of 
God,  and  so  win  human  souls  to  his  embrace.  It  does  not 
placate  the  Divine,  but  Hfts  up  and  redeems  the  human. 

His  next  theme  is  the  "  Christian  View  of  Moral  Evil." 
At  this  time  he  had  not  attained  to  the  ethical  doctrine  of 
his  later  years ;  yet  he  is  certainly  a  careless  reader  who 
does  not  find  in  this  discourse  germs  of  which  the  Types  of 
Ethical  Theory  is  the  unfolding. 

To  exhibit  the  Christian  view  he  does  not  exhibit  it 
alone,  but  passes  in  review  the  doctrine  of  two  principles 
that  were  held  in  Greece,  —  the  philosophical  doctrine 
which,  giving  God  an  absolute  monarchy,  makes  evil  an 
instrument  in  his  hands  for  the  furtherance  of  good  ;  and 
the  doctrine  which  theologians  have  drawn  from  the  Bible, 
which  teaches  a  created  spirit  of  evil  or  devil  to  which 
moral  evil  is  ultimately  referred.  These  he  discusses,  — 
the  first  two  briefly,  the  last  fully,  —  and  discards  as  un- 
tenable. Of  course,  under  the  latter  head  he  reviews  the 
doctrine  of  the  Fall  with  its  manifold  implications.  Neither 
God  directly  nor  "  through  his  dependant  Satan,"  —  neither 
"  by  his  general  laws"  nor  by  "vitiating  the  constitution  of 
our  first  parents,"^  —  is  he  willing  to  conceive  the  ultimate 
source  of  sin ;  rather  he  holds  God,  in  his  essential  nature, 


THE   CHRISTIAN   THEOLOGIAN  1 75 

its  enemy.  Where,  then,  is  its  source?  The  New  Testa- 
ment, reflecting  the  moral  consciousness  with  its  "  pro- 
found sense  of  individual  responsibility^'  guides  to  it. 
Christianity  he  finds  pre-eminently  a  "  personal "  religion, 
"  establishing  the  most  intimate  and  solitary  dealings 
between  God  and  every  human  soul."  "  It  is  a  religion 
eminently  naUiral ;  eradicating  no  indigenous  affection  of 
our  mind,  distorting  no  primitive  moral  sentiment;  but 
simply  consecrating  the  obligations  proper  to  our  nature, 
and  taking  up  with  a  divine  voice  the  whispers,  scarce 
articulate  before,  of  the  conscience  within  us."  ^  This 
sense  of  personal  responsibility  he  finds  impaired  by  "  all 
reference  of  the  evil  that  is  in  us  to  any  source  beyond  our- 
selves." "  To  look  for  a  remoter  cause  than  our  own  guilty 
wills  .  .  .  bewilders  the  simple  perceptions  of  conscience, 
and  throws  doubt  on  its  distinct  and  solemn  judgments."  ^ 
The  practical  result  of  this  scheme  of  doctrine  he  finds 
to  be  false  views  and  fictitious  feelings  with  respect  both 
to  our  own  characters  and  to  those  of  our  fellow-men. 
"  That  which  can  be  vicariously  incurred,  or  vicariously 
removed,  cannot  be  guilt;  cannot,  therefore,  be  sincerely 
felt  as  such ;  can  awaken  no  true  shame  and  self-reproach, 
and  draw  forth  no  burning  tears  when  we  meet  the  eye  of 
God.  It  is  a  shocking  mockery  to  call  sorrow  for  an  ances- 
tor's sin  by  the  name  of  penitence,  and  to  confound  the 
perception  [or,  as  it  is  termed,  '  application,']  of  Christ's 
holiness  with  the  personal  peace  of  conscience :  the  one 
can  be  nothing  else  than  moral  disapprobation,  attended 
by  the  sense  of  personal  injury  ;  the  other,  moral  approval, 
attended  by  the  sense  of  personal  benefit;  and  mean  and 
confused  must  be  the  sentiments  of  duty  in  a  mind  which 
can  mistake  these  for  the  private  griefs   of  contrition,  and 

^  P-  34- 

"  pp.  34-35.     It  may  be  worthy  of  remark  that  in  this  lecture  Mr.  Marti- 
neau  reaches  his  first  statement  of  the  freedom  of  the  will. 


1/6  JAMES    MARTINEAU 

the  serenity  of  a  self-forgetful  will."  ^  Thus  he  maintains 
against  the  dominant  theology,  the  fundamental  principle 
of  a  true  ethic,  which  makes  man  ever  the  ultimate  source 
of  his  deed,  and  honors  or  abases  him  according  to  the 
measure  of  his  obedience.  This  he  finds  the  verdict  of 
conscience,  whose  oracles  the  New  Testament  records  and 
consecrates.  He  uses  throughout  the  language  of  the 
philosopher,  but  he  bears  home  upon  the  dominant  creed 
the  imputation  of  being  fundamentally  dissonant  with  a 
sound  morality.  At  the  same  time  he  shows  that  the 
canons  of  righteousness,  the  ultimate  judge  of  creeds  and 
Scriptures,  are  within ;  that  it  must  be  a  false  creed  and 
a  spurious  Scripture  that  a  healthy  conscience  cannot 
ratify. 

His  concluding  lecture  was  of  "  Christianity  without 
Priest  and  without  Ritual."  He  opens  with  a  contrast  of 
prophetic  with  priestly  and  ritualistic  religion  which  it  is 
still  profitable  to  contemplate.  The  priest,  as  all  cults 
present  him,  is  the  representative  of  man  before  God. 
He  stands  between  the  worshipper  and  his  Deity ;  without 
his  mediation  there  is  no  access  to  the  grace  of  Heaven. 
His  office  no  one  else  can  exercise ;  there  are  interces- 
sions that  are  only  prevailing  when  he  makes  them ; 
rites,  ceremonies,  incantations  that  are  efiicacious  only 
when  he  employs  them ;  and  their  aim  is  not  to  superin- 
duce a  healthier  state  within  the  worshipper,  —  a  penitent 
heart,  a  surrendered  will ;  but  to  win  the  favor  of  an 
unmindful  or  offended  Deity.  The  Ritual,  that  is,  is  a 
"  system  of  consecrated  charms ;  and  the  Priest,  the  great 
magician  who  dispenses  them."  This  system,  indeed,  is 
capable  of  great  refinement  as  well  as  great  grossness,  yet 
in  its  better  as  in  its  poorer  ministration  the  same  essen- 
tial features  cling  to  it.  It  always  implies  an  idea  of  God 
and  his  relation  with  humanity  on  which  the  nobler  senti- 
1  p.  37.  2  p.  6. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGIAN  1 7/ 

ments  cannot  prosper.  Human  nature  is  presented  to 
us,  "in  contrast,  not  in  alliance,  with  the  divine;"  and 
ever  the  tendency  is  to  those  arguments  and  appeals  that 
impart  a  sense  of  widest  separation.  Man,  instead  of 
being  consecrated  by  the  immediate  fellowship  of  God,  is 
demeaned  into  an  outcast  from  his  presence. 

In  strongest  contrast  with  the  purely  pn'es^Ij  religion  is 
the  prophetic.  While  the  Priest  is  the  representative  of 
men  before  God,  the  "  Prophet  is  the  representative  of 
God  before  men."  Instead  of  carrying  a  petition  up,  he 
brings  a  message  down ;  "  instead  of  carrying  the  foulness 
of  life  to  be  cleansed  in  Heaven,  he  brings  the  purity  of 
Heaven  to  make  life  divine.  Instead  of  interposing  him- 
self and  his  mediation  between  humanity  and  Deity,  he 
destroys  the  whole  distance  between  them ;  and  only 
fulfils  his  mission,  when  he  brings  the  finite  mind  and  the 
infinite  into  immediate  and  thrilling  contact,  and  leaves 
the  creature  alone  with  the  Creator."  ^  As  is  the  differ- 
ence in  end,  so  is  the  difference  in  means.  While  the 
Priest  performs  his  rites  or  mutters  his  incantations,  the 
Prophet  speaks  the  burning  and  the  cleansing  word. 
The  former  is  without  forward  vision :  the  sacerdotal 
system  from  its  very  nature  is  stationary;  to  the  latter 
there  is  ever  a  fairer  truth,  a  new  obedience,  a  more 
radiant  ideal.  The  latter  cares  not  for  the  instituted,  but 
for  the  true;  not  for  rites,  but  for  living  worship;  not 
for  the  temple,  but  for  the  temple's  God ;  and  the  practical 
working  of  the  two  it  is  easy  enough  to  see.  The  former 
involves  a  "  distant  Deity,  a  mean  humanity,  a  servile 
worship,  a  physical  sanctity,  and  a  retrospective  rever- 
ence; "2  the  latter,  "  an  interior  Deity,  a  noble  humanity, 
a  loving  worship,  an  individual  hoHness,  and  a  prospec- 
tive veneration."  ^ 

'  pp.  lo-ii.     Also  Studies  of  Christianity,  p.  42. 
2  Ibid.  p.  40.  3  /^/^.  p,  4^. 

12 


178  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

Mr.  Martineau,  while  making  his  contrast,  has  hovering 
near  his  mind  the  Church  of  England,  whose  sacerdotal 
tendencies  it  was  easy  to  expose,  though  they  are  in 
union  with  a  prophetic  spirit  he  might  in  justice  have 
more  fully  recognized.  But  how  of  Christianity?  Is  it  a 
religion  of  the  priestly  or  of  the  prophetic  type?  His 
answer  is  unequivocal  and  strong.  "  Christianity,  then," 
he  says  in  closing,  "  is  without  Priest  and  without  Ritual. 
It  altogether  coalesces  with  the  prophetic  idea  of  religion, 
and  repudiates  the  sacerdotal.  Christ  himself  was  tran- 
scendently  THE  prophet.  He  brought  down  God  to  this 
our  life,  and  left  his  spirit  amid  its  scenes.  The  Apostles 
were  prophets ;  they  carried  that  spirit  abroad,  revealing 
everywhere  to  men  the  sanctity  of  their  nature,  and  the 
proximity  of  their  heaven."^  Such  was  his  view  of  Chris- 
tianity, with  all  that  it  implies.  It  was  intended  to  lift  up 
man,  not  to  reconcile  God  ;  to  redeem  from  sin,  not  to  save 
from  hell ;  to  awaken,  encourage,  comfort,  rebuke ;  to  win 
to  the  recognition  of  the  Eternal  Beauty  and  the  embrace 
of  the  Infinite  Love. 

Such  is  the  attitude  of  his  mind  during  this  memorable 
Controversy,  which  closed  in  the  spring  of  1840.  Certainly 
he  has  moved  far  from  the  ordination  confession ;  but, 
judged  by  the  standards  of  to-day,  he  has  reached  no  ex- 
treme of  radicalism.  His  mind  is  most  elastic,  and  it  is 
restrained  by  no  dogmatic  barriers ;  but  he  holds  to  the 
moral,  though  not  the  plenary  inspiration  of  the  Bible;  he 
still  believes  in  miracles ;  the  person  of  Christ  is  his  cen- 
tral light;  and  in  essentially  this  attitude  he  will  for  some 
time  remain.  In  \'i/\\,  6X'~>c\x'?>%\x\^  Five  Points  of  Christimi 
Faith,  he  enumerates  "  Faith  in  the  Moral  Perceptions  of 
Men,"  in  the  "  Moral  Perfection  of  God,"  in  the  "  Strictly 
Divine  and  Inspired  Character  of  our  own  Highest  De- 
sires and  Best  Affections,"  in  "  Christ  "  as  God's  ''perfect 

1  Studies  of  Chrisiiamty,  pp.  68-69. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGIAN  1/9 

and  transcendent  outward  revelation^'  in  "  Human  Immor- 
tality." Against  what  counter-theses  these  several  points 
are  maintained,  there  is  no  need  here  to  state.  In  1845, 
in  a  sermon  on  "  The  Bible  and  the  Child,"  he  disturbed 
the  peace  of  more  conservative  spirits  by  urging  that  the 
Bible  should  not  be  crowded  into  the  child's  mind  en 
7nasse,  but  should  be  offered  him  with  discrimination. 
"  This  indiscriminate  use  of  the  Bible,  as  an  infallible 
whole,"  he  tells  his  hearers,  "  fills  the  mind  with  a  system 
of  confused  and  self-contradictory  ideas,  both  of  religion 
and  morals."^  In  another  passage  he  tells  of  three  systems 
of  morals  which  he  finds  in  the  Bible,  "  most  at  variance 
with  each  other  in  their  general  spirit  and  tendency." 
They  are  those  of  Moses,  of  Solomon,  of  Christ;  "  respec- 
tively perfect  representations  of  the  sacerdotal,  the  Epicu- 
rean,  and  the  spiritual  type  of  human  duty;  "  ^  and  he  can 
see  only  moral  bewilderment  resulting  from  offering  them 
to  the  child  as  on  an  equal  footing  of  divine  authority. 
Yet  his  attitude  here  is  clearly  implied  in  his  Controversy 
lecture  of  a  year  before.  In  1846  he  records  dissent  from 
Theodore  Parker's  saying  that  if  Christianity  be  true  at  all, 
it  would  be  just  as  true  if  "Herod  or  Catiline  had  taught"  it. 
The  combination  of  a  "  true  Christianity  "  with  a  "  wicked 
Christ,"  "  he  finds  no  less  absurd  than  revolting."  On 
this  principle,  "  the  moral  perfectness  of  Christ  is  not  an 
essential,  but  a  subsidiary,  support  to  Christianity; —  a 
delightful  confirmation  of  his  mission,"  but  not  a  condi- 
tion of  our  faith  in  him.  The  very  contrary  Mr.  Marti- 
neau  finds  true.  "  Prove  what  you  will  against  his  life," 
Mr.  Parker  might  be  supposed  to  say,  "  his  attested 
doctrine  remains."  "  Prove  what  you  will  against  his  doc- 
trine," Mr.  Martineau  would  reply,  "  his  divine  life  re- 
mains; and  with  more  truth  in  it  than  in  any  proposition 

1  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  iv.  p.  394. 

2  Ibid.  p.  397. 


l8o  JAMES    MARTINEAU 

in  the  Bible  or  out  of  it."  ^  In  1850,  in  a  searching  review 
of  Francis  VV.  Newman's  Phases  of  Faith,  he  maintains  the 
moral  perfection  of  Jesus,  a  view  which  in  1853,  in  a  re- 
view of  New  Phases,  he  more  elaborately  defends.  In  the 
latter  paper,  too,  he  maintains  the  view  that  upon  the  per- 
son of  Jesus  Christendom  furnishes  an  "  indispensable 
commentary;"  that  a  scrutiny  of  his  lineaments  as  they 
were  first  offered  to  the  world  yields  not  the  person  that 
we  know.  "  As  Plato  thought  it  needful,  in  his  investiga- 
tion of  Morals,  to  study  their  embodiment  in  the  magnified 
scale  and  conspicuous  orders  of  the  State,  so  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  apprehend  aright  the  person  of  Jesus  without  watch- 
ing the  spread  of  his  shadow  over  the  ages,  and  throwing 
back  upon  him  the  characteristics  of  the  Christian  faith."  ^ 
The  same  year,  reviewing  R.  W.  Greg's  Creed  of  Christen- 
do?n,  with  subtler  and  fuller  statement,  he  maintains  the 
like  thesis  respecting  Christianity.  We  cannot  know  it  in 
its  seed,  that  is,  the  written  word  of  evangelist  or  apostle, 
but  only  in  its  unfolding.  "  Inspirationy  says  he,  "  in  giv- 
ing the  intensest  light  to  others,  may  have  a  dark  side  turned 
towards  itself  There  is  no  irreverence  in  saying  this,  and 
no  novelty :  on  the  contrary,  the  idea  has  ever  been 
familiar  to  the  most  fervent  men  and  ages,  of  Prophets 
who  prepared  a  future  veiled  from  their  own  eyes,  and 
saintly  servants  of  heaven,  who  drew  to  themselves  a  trust, 
and  wielded  a  power,  which  their  ever-upward  look  never 
permitted  them  to  guess."  ^  This  truth  he  copiously 
illustrates  from  the  Christian  record  by  showing  how 
Christianity,  though  realizing  far  more  grandly,  yet  failed 
to  realize  the  expectations  of  its  founders.  His  conclusion 
is  that  the  '^primitive  Gospel  is  not  in  its  form,  but  only 
in  its  spirit,  the  everlasting  Gospel."  In  all  this  we  see  a 
mind  reverently  dealing  at  first  hand  with  the  problems  of 

'  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  i.  pp.  182-183. 

2  Ibid.  vol.  iii.  p.  61. 

2  Studies  of  Christianity,  p.  2S6. 


THE   CHRISTIAN   THEOLOGIAN  l8l 

the  faith ;  not  emancipate  from  the  past,  nor  seeking  to  be ; 
yet  calling  no  man  and  no  creed  master,  and  in  the  love  of 
truth  earnestly  but  serenely  following  its  light. 

II.  Thus  we  have  surveyed  what  we  may  call  the  tentative 
period  of  his  theology.  We  meet  in  it  no  radical  changes, 
but  rapid  modifications,  and  always  away  from  the  domi- 
nant standards  of  faith.  The  distance  from  the  ordination 
confession  to  the  essays  of  the  earlier  fifties  is  long,  but 
the  line  of  travel  is  a  reasonably  straight  one. 

We  will  now  undertake  to  state  his  more  settled  and 
characteristic  doctrine.  Preliminary  to  this,  however,  we 
may  observe  that  what  we  have  called  his  tentative  period 
reaches  just  a  little  past  the  time  when  the  "metaphysic 
of  the  world  "  came  home  to  him  in  Trendelenburg's  class- 
room. One  who  carries  to  the  study  of  Dr.  Martineau's 
earlier  theology  a  firm  grasp  upon  his  earlier  philosophy 
must  sometimes  be  sensible  of  a  dissonance  between  them. 
Convictions  deep  as  his  life  surge  for  utterance,  which, 
placed  beside  the  doctrines  of  Hartley  and  the  Mills,  wear 
an  incongruous  look.  This  conversion  brought  him  to 
himself,  and  gave  him  that  spiritual  philosophy  without 
which  he  could  scarcely  have  known  an  intellectual  har- 
mony. We  may  venture  to  afiirm  even  more  than  this. 
There  is  a  connection,  often  enough  observed,  between  a 
mechanical  philosophy  and  a  vigorous  dogmatism,  and 
a  spiritual  philosophy  and  intellectual  freedom.  Given  the 
former,  the  soul  seeks  through  conventional  and  appointed 
ways  the  God  that  otherwise  it  is  not  allowed  to  find. 
Given  the  latter,  and  in  the  security  of  immediate  knowl- 
edge, the  appointed  ways  —  book,  creed,  ritual  —  lose 
their  importance.  In  a  strange  country  one  takes  the 
paths  that  are  pointed  out  to  him ;    but 

"  He  needs  a  guide  no  longer  who  hath  found 
The  way  already  leading  to  the  Friend." 


182  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

That  Mr,  Martineau's  philosophical  conversion  yielded 
him  another  theological  creed  we  could  not  say;  but 
another  'theological  temper  it  surely  yielded  him.  In  a 
sermon  already  quoted,  speaking  of  the  "  living  union  of 
God  with  our  humanity,"  he  said,  referring  to  the  earlier 
period,  "  Long  did  this  faith  pine  obscurely  within  me, 
ere  it  could  find  its  way  to  any  clear  joy."  After  his  con- 
version, however,  it  pined  no  more,  but  became  his  ever 
haunting  and  enthralling  conviction.  At  the  same  time 
he  turned  to  the  problems  with  which  he  had  been 
accustomed  to  deal,  with  correspondingly  altered  spirit. 
Before  there  had  been  an  apparent  willingness  to  save 
what  he  might:  while  ready  to  dare  anything  for  the 
truth,  he  was  somewhat  more  than  willing  that  certain 
things  should  be  true.  Now  he  faces  his  problems  with 
scarce  a  prejudice  as  to  the  issue,  concerned  only  that  his 
facts  shall  be  indisputable,  his  postulates  sound,  his  in- 
ferences just.  Meeting  God  as  a  daily  friend,  questions  of 
miracle  and  inspiration,  of  the  date  of  the  Pentateuch 
or  the  authorship  of  John,  may  be  tranquilly  left  to  the 
issues  of  learning  and  sound  reasoning. 

The  basal  principle  of  Mr.  Martineau's  theology  is  his 
Theism.  Many  would  say  they  are  Theists  because  they 
are  Christian:  on  the  authority  of  Christ  they  believe  in 
God.  Mr.  Martineau,  on  the  contrary,  is  a  Christian  be- 
cause he  is  a  Theist.  He  believes  in  Christ,  for  he  artic- 
ulates a  divine  word  which  Jie  has  also  heard.  His 
conception  of  God  is  not  of  an  infinite  Somewhat  beyond 
him,  or  of  a  Moral  Ideal  within  him,  but  of  a  "  Divine  Mind 
and  Will,"  —  distinctly  that;  and  he  meets  with  peremp- 
tory challenge  whatever  "  substitutes  "  for  this.  Especially 
stern  is  he  in  dealing  with  pantheistic  dissipations  of  it. 
Most  Theists  pantheize^  at  times;  Mr.  Martineau  never 
pantheizes ;  and  even  the  unsuspected  tentatives  towards 
pantheism,  be  sure  he  will  detect  and  unmask.    Thus  in  his 

1  See  note,  p.  403. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGIAN  1 83 

criticism  of  Theodore  Parker  in  1845,  while  giving  him 
amplest  recognition  as  a  Christian  thinker,  he  yet  brings 
him  to  judgment  for  his  pantheizing.  The  American, 
without  due  thought  it  may  have  been,  was  willing  to 
merge  all  inferior  causes  in  one  Supreme  Cause,  a  view 
which,  rigorously  followed,  should  have  taken  him  quickly 
to  the  plane,  if  not  the  orbit,  of  Spinoza.  To  this  Mr. 
Martineau  replies  that  there  is  "  one  thing  that  must  not 
be  overwhelmed,  even  by  an  invasion  of  the  Infinite  Glory. 
Let  all  besides  perish,  if  you  will ;  but  when  you  open  the 
windows  of  heaven  upon  this  godless  earth,  and  bring  back 
the  sacred  flood  to  swallow  up  each  brute  rebellious  power, 
let  there  be  an  ark  of  safety  built  ...  to  preserve  the  Hn- 
man  Will  from  annihilation  :  for  if  this  sink  too,  the  divine 
irruption  designed  to  purify,  does  but  turn  creation  into  a 
vast  Dead  Sea,  occupied  by  God."  ^  The  like  reservation  is 
one  of  the  characteristic  features  of  the  great  Study  of  Re- 
ligioti^  and  is  implied  in  his  multifarious  writings  through 
all  the  forty  years  between.  All  causes  operating  in  nature, 
in  the  last  century  called  second  causes,  he  is  willing  to  lose 
in  the  First  Cause ;  but  the  human  will  he  must  reserve  as 
itself  a  spring  of  causal  power.  To  the  pantheizing  flood 
this  is  a  dyke  that  he  always  opposes.  Gravitation  may 
express  a  divine  volition,  but  human  activities  have  no 
remoter  spring  than  the  human  personality.  But  there 
is  another  aspect  of  the  problem  which  it  is  important 
to  notice :  many  forget,  but  Mr.  Martineau  never  forgets, 
that  there  is  a  doctrine  of  man  that  is  essential  to  any 
doctrine  of  God  that  is  not  pantheistic.  They  may  stoutly 
deny  pantheism,  but  the  view  they  present  of  man  as  mode 
or  phenomenon  —  anything  but  substantive  and  real  — 
makes  pantheism  the  only  tenable  doctrine.  In  his  essay  on 
"  Nature  and  God  "  Mr.  Martineau,  brought  to  this  theme, 

1  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses^  vol.  i.  p.  170. 
*  See  vol.  ii.  pp.  170-171. 


184  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

remarks  in  his  pregnant  way :  "  It  is  not  enough  that  you 
save  the  Divine  personaHty,  if  you  sacrifice  the  Human  ; 
without  relation  to  which  lesser,  as  substantive  moral 
object,  the  greater,  left  to  shed  affections  only  on  its  own 
phenomenal  effects,  cannot  sustain  itself  alive."  ^  That  is 
to  say,  without  a  real  man  you  have  no  support  for  the 
conception  of  a  real  God.  Yet  another  aspect  of  the 
problem  he  is  called  to  notice.  In  these  latter  days 
the  tendency  of  thought  is  much  towards  the  Immanence 
of  God,  which  it  is  possible  so  to  conceive  as  to  obliterate 
His  personality.  Observing  in  nature  how  all  her  opera- 
tions are  necessitated,  not  free,  how  can  we  think  of  the 
immanent  Source  as  free,  not  necessitated?  He  comes  to 
this  consideration  in  185 1,  in  his  critique  of  Greg's  Creed 
of  Christendom.  "  With  an  intellect,"  says  he,  "  entirely 
overridden  by  the  ideas  of  Law  and  Necessity,  no  man  can 
escape  the  force  of  the  common  objections  to  any  doctrine 
of  prayer,  or  of  forgiveness  of  sin;  and  if  those  ideas  pos- 
sess universal  validity,  the  very  discussion  of  such  doctrine 
is,  in  the  last  degree,  idle  and  absurd.  But  what  if  some 
mediaeval  schoolman,  or  some  impugner  of  the  Baconian 
orthodoxy,  were  to  suggest  that,  though  Law  is  coextensive 
with  outward  nature.  Nature  is  not  coextensive  with  God, 
and  that  beyond  the  range  where  his  agency  is  bound  by 
the  pledge  of  predetermined  rules  lies  an  infinite  margin, 
where  his  spirit  is  free?  And  what  if,  in  aggravation  of 
his  heresy,  he  were  to  contend  that  Man  also,  as  counter- 
part of  God,  belongs  not  wholly  to  the  realm  of  nature, 
but  transcends  it  by  a  certain  endowment  of  free  power  in 
his  spirit?  "2  Thus  together  with  the  Immanence  of  God 
he  maintains  his  Transcendence:  beyond  the  realm  of  the 
ever  conditioned,  the  realm  of  the  ever  free.  This  view  is 
also  a  dominant  feature  of  the  Study  of  Religion  ^-"^   and 

1  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  iii.  p.  169. 

*  Studies  of  Christianity,  p.  280. 

*  See  vol.  ii.  pp.  138-142.    Dr.  Schurman  sees  in  Dr.  Martineau's  doctrine 


THE   CHRISTI/VN   THEOLOGIAN  1 85 

through  all  the  years  between,  it  was  one  of  the  constants 
of  his  thought.  In  all  deaUng  with  the  thcistic  problem, 
he  guards  the  idea  of  personality,  no  champion  of  thcistic 
faith  more  valiantly.  His  man  is  a  living  soul,  no  sequent 
in  an  order  of  phenomenal  succession,  or  modal  apparition 
of  another  nature;  his  God  is  a  living,  a  righteous,  and 
a  loving  God ;  and  the  latter  he  would  hold  untenable 
without  the  former. 

The  Immanence  of  God  provides  for  the  stability  of  the 
cosmic  order :  the  various  law  of  the  outward  universe  is 
the  decree  of  the  Immanent  Will.  At  the  same  time  His 
Transcendency  provides  for  His  free  communion  with  the 
spirit  in  man.  The  fuller  statement  of  this  doctrine  must 
be  reserved  for  a  later  page ;  ^  enough  to  note  here  that 
while  on  the  one  hand  it  consecrates  the  universe  with  the 
Divine  Presence,  and  yields  that  order  which  makes  sci- 
ence possible,  on  the  other  hand  it  provides  that  possibility 
of  personal  relationship  which  religion  ever  asks.  Thus  it 
becomes  the  basal  provision  for  a  second  doctrine  which 
he  maintains  with  great  cogency  and  fervor,  that  of  inspi- 
ration. We  have  seen  how,  in  his  tentative  period,  he 
wrestled  with  the  prevailing  standards  of  this  doctrine,  how 
against  the  theory  of  plenary  inspiration,  which  made 
prophet  or  apostle  but  the  passive  agent  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
he  maintained  an  inspiration  that  left  the  prophet  free  to 
use  language  as  he  had  learned  it,  to  report  facts  as  he 
had  observed  them,  to  reason  according  to  his  natural 
skill ;  an  inspiration  that  moved  the  soul,  but  did  not  dic- 
tate to  the  tongue  or  pen.  In  his  earlier  tentatives 
towards  this  view,  his  teaching  wears  an  indefinite  look,  — 

of  Transcendency  "  an  unconscious  survival  from  the  deistic  conception  of 
God's  relation  to  the  universe."  {Belief  in  God,  p.  176.)  Dr.  Schurman  is 
a  writer  who  weighs  his  words  ;  but  one  who  places  beside  typical  deism  the 
theism  of  Dr.  Martineau  will  surely  be  impressed,  not  by  resemblance,  but 
by  contrast. 

^  See  book  iii.,  "  Pantheism." 


1 86  JAMES    MARTINEAU 

it  needs  must  wear  such  when  placed  beside  the  old  me- 
chanical theory  which  he  repudiated.  He  was  brought, 
however,  to  a  more  definite  statement  through  a  challenge 
he  was  compelled  to  make  of  the  indefiniteness  of  another, 
and  that,  again,  Theodore  Parker.  Inspiration,  says  the 
latter,  "is  the  light  of  all  our  being;  the  background 
of  all  human  faculties;  the  sole  means  by  which  we  gain 
knowledge  of  what  is  not  seen  and  felt,  the  logical  con- 
dition of  sensual  knowledge;  our  human  way  to  the  world 
of  Spirit."  ^  This  is  perfectly  consistent  with  the  pantheiz- 
ing  tendency  we  have  already  marked  in  him ;  and  it  is  as 
an  expression  of  this  tendency  that  his  speculation  draws 
from  Mr.  Martineau  the  criticism  in  which  his  own  maturer 
views  of  inspiration  are  first  distinctly  outlined.  If  so 
much  is  inbreathed  by  the  Divine,  what  then,  we  may  ask, 
is  achieved  by  the  human?  If  in  such  measure  we  are 
dependent  upon  God,  our  own  resource  is  nothing,  a  view 
which  no  consistent  theist  could  allow.  "  Were  we  to 
attempt  a  solution,"  says  Dr.  Martineau,  "  we  should  com- 
mence from  the  division  of  all  Agency  into  the  two  cate- 
gories of  the  Human  Will,  and  the  Divine  Will :  we  should 
endeavor  to  determine  the  circle  of  the  former ;  and  what- 
ever lay  wholly  beyond  it,  though  still  within  the  limits  of 
Consciousness  and  of  Law,  we  should  refer  to  the  latter. 
Not  everything,  however,  that  must  be  ascribed  immedi- 
ately to  God,  can  be  called  Inspiration.  He  acts  oitt  of 
the  Spirit,  or  in  Nature,  as  well  as  wit/mi  the  Spirit,  or  in 
our  Soul ;  and  we  must,  therefore,  again  exclude  the 
whole  of  the  former  sphere,  and  reserve  only  the  chaj'ac- 
teristic  faculties  of  man.  If  it  were  maintained  that  there 
were  a  plurality  of  these,  a  further  reduction  might  be 
allowed,  till  the  attribute  alone  remained  which  manifests 
itself  in  worship,  —  the  consciousness  of  moral  distinctions, 
and  reverence  for  moral  excellence  and  beauty.     What- 

1  Discourse  of  MaUers  Pertaining  to  Religion,  fourth  Am.  edition,  p.  205. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGIAN  1 8/ 

ever  gifts  are  found  in  this  province  of  the  soul,  which  are 
not  the  produce  of  human  will ;  which  have  been  neither 
learned  nor  earned ;  which,  without  the  touch  of  any 
voluntary  process,  appear  in  mysterious  spontaneity;  are 
strictly  the  Inspiration  of  God."  ^  The  like  dissent  from 
our  American  prophet,  and  the  like  affirmative  doctrine, 
he  puts  forth  again  in  the  Study  of  Religion.  "  A  reason," 
says  he,  "  that  does  no  thinking  for  itself,  a  conscience  that 
flings  aside  no  temptation  and  springs  to  no  duty,  affec- 
tion that  toils  in  no  chosen  service  of  love,  a  '  religious 
sentiment'  that  waits  for  such  faith  as  may  'come  in'  to 
it,"  —  all  conclusions  fairly  drawn  from  Parker's  teaching, 
—  "negative  their  own  function  and  disappear." ^  Again, 
in  his  wonderful  discussion  of  "  God  in  History,"  ^  he  says : 
"In  order  to  save  the  personal  power  in  man,  and  to  leave 
him  any  real  partnership  in  history,  we  must  concede  him 
a  mental  constitution  of  his  own,  —  a  trust  of  both  intel- 
lectual faculty  and  moral  will ;  and  must  limit  the  divine 
part  to  the  intuitive  data,  from  which  every  activity  of  our 
inner  nature  must  start."  "  Each  power  of  the  soul,"  he 
maintains,  "  has  its  own  appropriate  object  to  which  it 
feels  its  way,  —  reason  to  truth,  imagination  to  beauty, 
conscience  to  right.  The  presentation  of  these  to  us  is  7iot 
our  own  doijig;  the  regular  pursuit  of  them  is."^  This 
thesis,  as  he  is  writing  of  history,  he  illustrates  in  a  large 
way  by  reference  to  the  Greek,  the  Hebrew,  and  the  Teu- 
tonic mind.  To  the  Greek  there  was  "  a  haunting  feeling 
of  an  indwelling  divineness  embodied  in  the  cosmos,  and 
interfused  through  all  its  parts,  including  man  as  one  of 
them ;  for,  to  the  Greek,  the  universe  and  human  life  never 
appeared  as  in  their  essence  antitlietic  to  the  divine,  but 
rather  a  clothing  and  manifesting  it,  and  moulded  by  its 

1  Essays,  Reviews,  a7id  Addresses,  vol.  i.  pp.  iSo-iSi. 

2  Vol.  ii.  p.  170. 

8  Seat  of  Authority ,  p.  116.  *  Ibid. 


1 88  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

inner  thought;  "^  the  Jew,  ruled  by  a  moral  conception, 
bore  witness  to  the  ''moral  govejnimcnt  of  the  world;" 
and,  as  the  Greek  "  interfused  the  divine  essence  through 
the  cosmic  spaced'  followed  the  "  divine  footsteps  down  the 
tracks  of  historic  time,''  and  made  the  "  course  of  history 
a  highway  for  his  God ;  " '  while  to  the  Teuton  belongs 
peculiarly  that  "sense  of  personal  relation  between  the 
single  soul  and  the  Spirit  of  God,  which  is  the  mainspring 
of  private  sanctities,  and  releases  the  heart  from  the  con- 
straint of  law  into  the  freedom  of  love."^ 

Thus  he  finds  a  threefold  divine  initiative,  —  in  the 
sense  of  that  glory  that  transfigures  the  universe,  of  a 
Righteousness  that  bends  the  curves  of  history,  of  per- 
fection in  the  individual  soul.  These  are  given,  not  found. 
Herein,  not  in  a  mechanical  controlling  of  men's  faculties, 
he  finds  the  truth  of  inspiration  ;  and  by  a  conviction  of 
this,  as  firmly  held  as  was  the  older  doctrine  by  Melanch- 
thon  or  Calvin,  his  own  work  is  done. 

Here  then  we  have  a  relation  of  persons,  —  always  that : 
a  giver  and  a  receiver;  an  upturned  eye,  a  down-flowing 
light,  the  light  of  the  eternal  Sun.  Of  persons,  be  it  again 
emphasized,  not  of  Essence  and  mode,  not  of  Reality  and 
appearance,  but  of  Soul  and  soul. 

But  more  than  inspiration  is  provided  for  in  this  rela- 
tion. Between  persons  there  may  be  communion,  —  mind 
responsive  to  mind,  affection  answering  to  affection ;  and 
though  one  be  infinite  and  the  other  finite,  the  disparity 
makes  the  grace  no  less  possible.     Still 

"  The  spirit  of  the  worm  beneath  the  sod, 
In  love  and  worship,  blends  itself  with  God." 

This  theme  is  much  dwelt  upon  by  Mr.  Martineau,  though 
less  in  the  way  of  doctrinal  exposition  than  of  mystic  con- 
templation.    The  truth  is  avouched  to  him  by  experience ; 

1  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  117.  2  y^/^_  p_  u^^  g  /^/^/.  p_  ^^.y 


THE   CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGIAN  1 89 

in  the  private  confessional  he  has  met  his  God  too  often 
to  allow  question  as  to  the  possibility  of  the  interview. 
Rather  he  would  contend  that  of  all  persons  in  the  uni- 
verse, God  is  the  most  easily  accessible.  Herein,  we 
hardly  need  say,  is  involved  his  view  of  prayer.  A  super- 
ficial scepticism,  instructed  only  by  natural  law,  cavils  at 
prayer.  It  does  not  avail  to  feed  the  hungry,  stay  the 
storm,  hold  aloof  the  canker-worm,  keep  the  pestilence 
at  bay.  No,  Mr.  Martineau  would  say,  what  the  decrees 
of  the  Infinite  Will  have  fixed,  prayer  cannot  avail  to 
unfix.  The  laws  of  physical  nature  relent  not  in  their 
sway,  and  man,  so  far  as  a  physical  nature,  is  subject  to 
them.  But  in  the  realm  transcending  nature  which  as  a 
spiritual  being  is  his  home,  and  where  God  in  His  tran- 
scendency is,  the  two  meet  on  other  terms.^  Here  is  not 
fixity,  but  freedom.  Here  the  soul  meets  not  decrees, 
but  admonitions;  is  shown  not  an  order,  but  a  beauty; 
and  here  it  may  pour  out  its  needs  and  God  dispense  his 
grace,  while  all  the  functions  of  the  physical  nature  go  on. 
The  pantheist  who  allows  God  and  man  to  meet  only  in 
nature,  and  the  deist  who,  banishing  God  wholly  from 
nature,  leaves  man  wholly  within  it,  may  find  no  easy 
reconciliation  of  law  and  prayer.  But  a  theist  of  the 
type  of  Mr.  Martineau  finds  no  call  for  reconciliation, 
for  there  is  not  even  an  apparent  dissonance  between 
them ;  and  he  can  say,  as  Mr.  Martineau  has  said,  "  I 
know  of  nothing  in  the  constitution  of  the  universe  at  all 
at  variance  with  our  natural  faith  in  a  personal  inter- 
course with  God,  in  his  openness  to  our  appeal  and  our 
susceptibility  to  his  spirit."  ^  Man  so  far  as  he  belongs 
to  nature  must  experience  according  as  God  has  decreed ; 
as  a  spiritual  being  he    may  receive   as  God  may  give. 

^  See  Study  of  Religion,\o\.\\.  pp.  179-181. 

-  Sermon,  "  The  Prayer  of  Faith,"  Hours  of  Thought  on  Sacred  Things 
second  series. 


190  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

Prayer  may  not  avail  to  neutralize  the  malaria's  poison, 
or  to  float  the  shattered  vessel  to  the  haven ;  it  may, 
however,  bring  strength  to  the  tempted,  courage  to  the 
fearful,  comfort  to  the  sorrowing,  resignation  to  the  rebel- 
lious, faith  to  the  doubting,  peace  to  the  troubled ;  and 
these  through  God's  answering  grace. 

But  more  yet  is  implied.  A  relation  of  persons  opens 
the  way  to  a  relation  of  ruler  and  subject,  and  hence, 
through  the  self-ordering  of  our  conduct,  obedience  or 
disobedience.  We  can  submit  to  a  fate,  we  can  yield  to  a 
law,  but  we  can  obey  only  a  person. 

We  must  defer  to  a  later  page  Mr.  Martineau's  justifi- 
cation of  the  supreme  holiness  of  God;  sufiice  it  here  to 
say  that  in  the  presence  of  that  holiness  we  recognize  the 
rightful  disposer  of  our  lives.  It  is  ours,  indeed,  through 
the  august  prerogative  of  freedom,  to  elect  the  disposal; 
His  will,  as  communicated  to  us,  we  may  make  our  guide 
unto  righteousness,  or  we  may  repudiate  it  unto  sin;  but 
there  is  the  alternative,  offered  to  every  one  to  whom  a 
vision  of  right  has  been  given.  This  or  that,  this  better 
or  that  poorer,  — soul,  which  wilt  thou?  and  according  to 
our  choice  is  our  spiritual  aHgnment.  Sin, —  that  is  Mr. 
Martineau's  oft-used  word,  and  he  speaks  it  with  an  impres- 
sive solemnity.  Liberal  preachers  have  been  wont  to  shun 
it.  Man  they  have  treated  as  half-educated,  over-tempted, 
a  blunderer;  Mr.  Martineau  says  plainly  simmer;  and,  like 
Wesley  or  Whitefield  whose  example  he  often  recalls,  he 
directs  his  burning  speech  to  the  awakening  of  a  sinning 
nature  to  the  saving  sense  of  its  condition.  His  sin,  in- 
deed, is  not  like  that  of  Calvinism,  corruption  through 
another's  transgression ;  it  is  a  defilement  or  disease  self- 
incurred,  and  for  which  no  extenuating  plea  can  be  offered. 
Long  practice  of  disobedience  may  numb  us  to  the  sense 
of  its  enormity;  for  "  it  is  of  the  essence  of  guilty  declen- 
sion to  administer  its  own  anaesthetics ;  "    and  so  the  soul 


THE   CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGIAN  191 

may  suffer  less  the  deeper  is  its  ignominy;  but  the  down- 
ward way  was  entered  when  first,  a  nobler  and  a  baser 
offered,  choice  was  made  of  the  baser,  and  the  deeper  and 
deeper  turpitude  was  only  incurred  as  the  like  choice  was 
repeated.  In  another  feature  too  he  departs  from  the  cus- 
tomary tone  of  many  liberal  theologians :  in  disobedience 
he  allows  no  gradations.  As  spiritual  beings  we  are  judged 
not  by  the  thing  we  do,  but  by  the  service  we  render, 
whether  it  be  to  God  or  devil ;  and  this  he  holds  that  the 
unhardened  soul,  by  its  sense  of  guilt  and  remorse,  con- 
fesses. In  a  vivid  picture  of  Peter's  anguish  ^  after  the 
denial  of  his  Master,  he  imagines  the  customary  palliatives 
addressed  to  him:  This,  indeed,  Peter,  is  very  bad,  but 
take  heart ;  you  could  have  done  much  worse.  To  be 
sure,  you  told  a  lie,  but  you  did  not  tell  two.  You  only 
denied  your  Master,  you  did  not  traduce  him,  you  did  not 
kill  him.  There  is  Judas  now;  think  of  his  betrayal  and 
how  much  worse  was  that.  To  this,  Peter,  speaking  true  to 
the  witness  within  him,  can  only  reply,  —  and  these  words 
Mr.  Martineau  puts  upon  his  lips:  "Go  to,  thou  fool  and 
blind ;  Satan  gave  me  the  lie  to  tell ;  but  he  put  no  mur- 
derer's dagger  in  my  hand  ;  what  more  then  could  I  do  for 
him  than  I  have  done?  "  A  little  further  on  he  says  :  "  Ap- 
pealed to  by  the  actual  competitors  for  our  will,  we  well 
know  which  is  the  higher,  expressing  the  will  of  God ;  and 
which  the  lower,  representing  his  aversion.  There  is  no 
third  thing  present;  and  the  difference  between  the  two  is 
all  that  there  can  be  :  it  is  something  infinite,  being  beyond 
all  qtiantity,  and  giving  an  antithesis  of  quality,  contrasted 
as  beauty  with  horror,  as  the  zenith  with  the  nadir,  as  the 
smile  of  heaven  with  the  frown.  There  is  then  no  second 
bestxn  Duty;  and  the  remorse  which  makes  us  feel,  when 
we  have  fallen,  as  traitors  and  accursed,  flying  from  the 
tempestuous  face  of  God,  reports  to  us  the  awful  truth: 
1  Hours  of  Thoni^ht,  second  series,  p.  142. 


192  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

had  we  been  devils,  we  could  have  done  no  worse ;  we  did 
the  whole  evil  we  were  bid  to  do."  ^ 

But  if  sin,  there  may  be  pardon ;  on  the  placability  of 
God  he  delights  to  dwell.  Sins  forsaken  are  the  Father's 
smile  regained.  But  there  is  also  punishment :  and  this 
not  mere  consequences  of  wrongdoing  such  as  we  daily 
experience,  —  poverty  from  wasteful  indulgence,  loss  of 
confidence  from  dishonest  dealing,  impaired  health  from 
dissipated  habit,  —  it  is  something  more  strictly  penal,  more 
retributive.  Though  sin  may  administer  its  "  anaesthetics," 
and  the  drugged  soul  become  insensible  to  its  shame,  yet 
it  shall  somehow  and  somewhere  be  awakened  from  its 
torpor;  its  dark  record  it  shall  read;  its  evil  deeds  it  shall 
confront,  and  have  full  and  clear  experience  of  the  holi- 
ness it  has  insulted.  The  doctrine  of  the  older  Universal- 
ists  which,  after  the  experience  of  this  life,  allowed  saint  and 
sinner  to  begin  all  over  again  on  equal  terms  in  another 
one,  is  none  of  Mr.  Martineau's ;  rather  the  inevitable 
workings  of  sin,  the  fact  that  "  guilty  declension  administers 
its  own  anaesthetics,"  so  that  deeper  guilt  may  make  well- 
nigh  insensible  to  guiltiness,  and  remorse  at  last  may  lose 
its  fang,  carries  his  mind  to  the  future  for  the  experience 
of  that  justice  which  in  this  life  is  not  executed.  Future  pun- 
ishment, that  he  teaches.  How  that  may  be  in  the  future 
which  cannot  be  now  he  does  not  affirm  with  definiteness, 
but  he  has  his  visions.  The  "  transition  of  Death "  he 
holds  to  be  large  enough  to  "  open  free  play  for  many  a 
penalty  that  has  remained  only  potential  here."  With  the 
changes  of  "  body,  mind,  society  and  scene  "  that  it  brings, 
"  the  old  resources  for  slighting  contrition  and  evading  the 
misery  of  wrong  may  well  have  come  to  an  end."  To 
this  thought  he  recurs  again  and  again,  and  his  vivid  elo- 
quence carries  it  home  with  a  power  that  is  sometimes 
terrible.  R.  H.  Hutton,  recounting  Mr.  Martineau's  ser- 
1  Hours  of  Thought,  second  series,  pp.  142-143. 


THE   CIIRTSTL\N  THEOLOGIAN  I93 

vices  to  himself,  said  that  he  had  inspired  him,  as  the  Cal- 
vinists  had  failed  to  do,  with  the  "  fear  of  hell."  "  There 
are  passages  in  his  writings,"  said  he,  "  which  have  filled 
me  in  moments  of  temptation  and  trial,  with  a  dread  which 
hardly  any  living  writer  could  have  produced."  He  made 
special  reference  to  the  vivid  picture  of  the  "  maniac  of 
remorse"  at  the  close  of  the  sermon  on  "Christ's  Treat- 
ment of  Guilt,"  ^  a  passage  which  it  cannot  be  amiss  to 
quote  in  full :  — 

"  It  is  remarkable  how  slight  a  suggestion  is  occasionally 
sufficient  to  bring  back  vast  trains  of  emotion.  There  are 
cases  in  which  some  particular  function  of  the  memory  ac- 
quires an  exquisite  sensibility :  and  usually,  as  if  God  would 
warn  us  what  must  happen  when  our  moral  nature  is  di- 
vorced from  the  physical,  it  is  the  memory  of  conscience  that 
maintains  this  preternatural  watch.  In  many  a  hospital  of 
mental  disease  [as  it  is  called]  you  have  doubtless  seen  a  mel- 
ancholy being,  pacing  to  and  fro  with  rapid  strides,  and  lost 
to  every  thing  around ;  wringing  his  hands  in  incommuni- 
cable suft'ering,  and  letting  fall  a  low  mutter  rising  quickly 
into  the  shrill  cry ;  his  features  cut  with  the  graver  of  sharp 
anguish;  his  eyeHds  drooping  [for  he  never  sleeps],  and 
showering  ever  scalding  tears.  It  is  the  maniac  of  re- 
morse ;  possibly  indeed  made  wretched  by  merely  imagi- 
nary crimes  ;  but  just  as  possibly  maddened  by  too  true  a 
recollection,  and  what  the  world  would  esteem  too  scrupu- 
lous a  conscience.  Listen  to  him,  and  you  will  often  be 
surprised  into  fresh  pity,  to  find  how  seemingly  slight  are 
the  offences,  —  injuries  perhaps  of  mere  unripened  thought, 
—  which  feed  the  fires,  and  whirl  the  lash,  of  this  incessant 
woe.  He  is  the  dread  type  of  hell.  He  is  absolutely  se- 
questered [as  any  mind  may  be  hereafter],  incarcerated 
alone  with  his  memories  of  sin  ;  and  that  is  all.  He  is  un- 
conscious of  objects  and  unaware  of  time  :  and  every  guilty 

1  See  Endeavors  after  the  Christian  Life. 
13 


194  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

soul  may  find  itself,  likewise,  standing  alone  in  a  theatre 
peopled  with  the  collected  images  of  the  ills  that  he  has 
done  ;  and  turn  where  he  may,  the  features  he  has  made  sad 
with  grief,  the  eyes  he  has  lighted  with  passion,  the  infant 
faces  he  has  suffused  with  needless  tears,  stare  upon  him 
with  insufferable  fixedness.  And  if  thus  the  past  be  truly 
indestructible  ;  if  thus  its  fragments  may  be  regathered  ;  if 
its  details  of  evil  thought  and  act  may  be  thus  brought 
together  and  fused  into  one  big  agony,  —  why,  it  may  be 
left  to  '  fools  '  to  '  make  a  mock  at  sin.'  " 

Whoever  lingers  over  this  passage  sufficiently  to  take 
home  its  meaning  will  surely  feel  that  the  punishment  it 
implies  lacks  nothing  of  severity.  The  older  theologians 
used  different  terms,  but,  a  few  lurid  spirits  excepted,  it 
may  be  doubted  if  they  provided  a  hell  more  terrible  than 
this.  For  an  evil  soul  to  awaken  out  of  a  spiritual  torpor, 
and  with  clear  vision  see  the  evil  it  has  done ;  to  become 
vividly  conscious  of  low  appetites  that  have  been  given 
rein,  of  passions  that  have  not  been  restrained,  of  griefs  that 
have  been  cruelly  inflicted,  of  perfidies  that  have  been 
practised,  of  lies  that  have  been  told,  the  compunctions 
that  should  have  saved  from  them  being  smothered  for  the 
while ;  for  the  seducer  to  realize  the  baseness  of  his  deed, 
the  traitor  the  enormity  of  his  offence,  the  murderer  the 
horror  of  his  crime ;  the  veil  of  forgetfulness  so  securely 
drawn  over  the  past  suddenly  lifted,  the  turpitude  all  plain, 
and  the  soul  seeing  itself  in  its  revealing  blackness,  —  is 
there  other  torture  it  would  not  take  in  exchange  for  its 
utter  self-loathing  and  remorse.?  With  this  punishment  in 
its  moral  aspect  also  there  is  absolutely  no  fault  to  find ; 
it  is  only  right :  it  is  the  soul's  own  record  that  it  contem- 
plates ;  it  is  itself  it  sees  mirrored  in  its  own  deed,  itself 
as  it  is,  but  did  not  need  become.  The  old  doctrine  of 
retribution  offends  the  moral  consciousness,  and  so  clouds 
the   righteousness  of  the    universe;    this  one   the   moral 


THE  CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGL\N  195 

consciousness  ratifies,  and  so  sees  in  it  a  manifestation  of 
that  righteousness.  Between  the  two  there  is  another 
difiference :  the  older  doctrine  stipulates  the  sufifering  as  a 
finality;  to  Mr.  Martineau,  here  as  there,  it  has  an  insep- 
arable relation  with  remedy.  The  doctrine  of  Plato,  that 
the  wise  transgressor  will  seek,  not  shun,  his  punishment, 
has  seemed  to  many  rather  ideal  than  practical;  to  Mr. 
Martineau,  sufifering  for  sin  if  dreadful  is  yet  altogether 
desirable,  not  to  be  asked  reprieve  from,  but  to  be  prayed 
for,  —  Smite,  Lord,  for  thy  mercy's  sake  spare  not. 
Through  the  punishment  a  sense  of  the  soul's  estate  is 
borne  in  upon  it;  the  truth  and  right  of  the  universe, 
otherwise  trampled  and  discredited,  are  vindicated.  The 
soul,  forever  denied  such  suffering,  he  would  hold,  indeed, 
not  favored,  but  defrauded.  But  more  and  deeper,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  suffering  must  ever  attend  the  awaken- 
ing of  the  soul  to  its  ill  estate,  the  realization  of  the  purity 
and  high  joy  it  has  put  by.  As  one  numbed  by  cold  and 
at  length  become  insensible,  awakened  by  medicinal  arts 
from  stupor  nigh  to  death,  has  experience  of  a  searching 
agony,  the  attendant  and  the  witness  of  returning  life,  so 
with  the  sinning  soul,  aroused  to  a  consciousness  of  its 
estate :  its  contrition  and  its  shame  are  incident  to  the  way 
of  recovery.  They  imply  that  at  least  a  thrilling  glimpse 
of  the  higher  beauty  has  been  given  it,  in  contrast  with 
which  its  unseemliness  is  manifest.  That  beauty  is  its 
possible  attainment;  but  its  via  sacra,  for  a  period,  at 
least,  must  be  a  via  dolorosa.  Before  it  hard  and  dark 
looms  the  mount  of  Purgatory,  and  only  up  its  steep 
ascent  and  through  its  cleansing  fires  can  the  forsaken 
Paradise  be  regained. 

Thus  these  several  items  of  doctrine,  inspiration,  com- 
munion with  God,  prayer,  sin,  forgiveness,  punishment, 
flow  from  that  relation  of  persons  which  he  maintains  so 
strenuously. 


196  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

It  needs  not  to  be  shown  that  these  doctrines,  though 
philosophically  maintained,  are  Christian;  in  their  ultimate 
thought,  however  unique  in  their  explication,  they  are  the 
staple  of  Christendom.  But  what  in  its  later  stages  is  his 
view  of  Christ?  The  Arianism  of  his  ordination  con- 
fession went,  and  a  Humanitarian  view  —  strictly  that  — 
came  to  its  place.  Christ  became  to  him  distinctly  man, 
not  a  celestial  somewhat  between  man  and  God.  With  the 
change  of  nature  there  was  a  corresponding  change  of 
office :  Christ  ceased  to  be  Lord  and  Saviour ;  he  became 
teacher,  exemplar,  guide,  brother,  friend. 

Was  this  change  attended  with  a  lower  tone  of  feel- 
ing? Did  it  make  Jesus  less  dear  to  him,  his  word  less 
persuasive,  his  example  less  inspiring?  The  contrary 
were  the  rather  true:  the  critic  and  philosopher  experi- 
enced the  ever-intensifying  ardor  of  the  disciple's  loy- 
alty. Settle  the  question  of  Christ's  nature  as  you  may, 
and  define  his  office  as  you  will,  the  personality  that 
transfigures  the  Gospels  had  ever  the  homage  of  his 
heart. 

Those  who  have  been  troubled  by  his  arraignments  of 
prevailing  forms  of  theology  have  often  had  but  dim  per- 
ception of  the  hold  that  Jesus  had  upon  him.  In  1850, 
in  his  review  of  Phases  of  Faith,  he  fervidly  maintained 
Jesus'  moral  perfection.  "  We  must  persist,"  says  he,  "  in 
presuming  Jesus  to  be  perfect  till  shown  to  be  imperfect. 
We  derive  our  estimate  of  him  wholly  from  the  picture 
presented  in  the  Gospels,  .  .  .  and  so  long  as  this  picture 
presents  no  moral  imperfections,  we  must  decline  supply- 
ing them  out  of  the  resources  of  fancy.  In  presuming 
Christ  to  be  perfect,  we  simply  refuse  to  suppose  a  draw- 
back on  what  we  see  from  what  we  do  not  see,  and  insist 
on  forming  our  judgment  from  the  known,  without  arbi- 
trary modification  from  the  unknown.  No  doubt  Jesus,  as 
a  being  open  to  temptation,  was  intrinsically  capable  of 


THE   CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGIAN  197 

sin :  but  this,  as  a  set-off  against  the  positive  evidence  of 
hoHness,  no  more  proves  actual  imperfection,  than  the 
mere  capacity  for  goodness  in  the  wicked  proves  their 
actual  perfection."  A  Httle  further  on  he  adds :  "  Christ 
had  the  liability  to  sin,  not  because  he  was  hiima7i,  but 
because  he  wdjs,  free  ;  and  whatever  presumption  of  imper- 
fection arises  hence,  would  have  arisen  no  less,  had  he 
been  an  angel  of  the  highest  rank.  All  souls  are  of  one 
species :  or  rather,  are  lifted  above  the  level  where  diver- 
sity of  species  prevails,  so  as  to  range,  not  with  Nature, 
but  with  God."^  Three  years  later,  in  reviewing  a  second 
edition  of  Phases,  he  maintains  the  same  attitude,  but 
wishes  to  form  judgment,  not  alone  from  the  lineaments 
of  Jesus  as  shown  in  the  New  Testament,  but  also  from  his 
grace  as  manifest  in  Christian  history.  "  We  admit,"  says 
he,  "  and  maintain  that  to  the  Person  of  Christ  Christen- 
dom supplies  an  indispensable  commentary  ;  and  that  to 
judge  of  him  as  of  a  private  neighbour  by  puzzling  out 
his  lineaments  beforehand,  instead  of  observing  the  action 
of  his  individuality  upon  mankind  and  the  mingling  of  his 
influence  with  the  currents  of  time,  is  not  unlikely  to  lead  to 
an  estimate  of  him  other  than  that  which  we  defend.  But 
the  measure  of  the  grandest  beings  cannot  be  taken  by 
any  private  standards  or  contemporary  memoirs :  and  his- 
tory is  their  biography  writ  large.  ...  As  Plato  thought 
it  needful,  in  his  investigation  of  Morals,  to  study  their 
embodiment  in  the  magnified  scale  and  conspicuous  orders 
of  the  State,  so  it  is  impossible  to  apprehend  aright  the 
person  of  Jesus  without  watching  the  spread  of  his  shadow 
over  the  ages,  and  throwing  back  upon  him  the  character- 
istics of  the  Christian  faith,"  ^  In  his  review  also  of  Renan, 
ten  years  later,  the  like  august  moral  estimate,  if  less  speci- 

1  Essays,  Revinvs,  and  Addresses,  vol.  iii.  pp.  3S-39. 

2  Ibid.  p.  61.     See  also  essay  by  Edward  Caird,  "  Christianity  and  the 
Historical  Christ,"  New  World,  vol.  v. 


198  JAMES  MARTINEAU 

fically  emphasized,  is  yet  implied ;  ^  and  yet  again  in  1890, 
in  the  Seat  of  AutJiority,  though  the  language  is  not  so 
unqualified,  it  is  plain  that  Jesus  wears  to  him  a  moral 
grace  that  lifts  him  to  a  peerless  height.^  This  attitude 
does  not  imply  the  belief  that  all  moral  insights  were 
given  Jesus,  nor  that  all  moral  issues  lay  clear  before  him; 
it  does  not  imply  the  absence  of  temptation  and  struggle; 
nay,  these  limitations  may  be  conditions  of  being,  in  the 
strict  sense,  moral  at  all.  It  does  imply,  however,  that 
whether  insights  were  clear  or  dim,  in  whatever  struggle  or 
whatever  pain,  he  was  faithful  to  the  Higher  Will.  This 
aspect  of  his  character  held  the  heart  of  Dr.  Martinbau  in 
steadfast  discipleship.  No  critic  has  dealt  with  the  Chris- 
tian record  more  unsparingly  than  he ;  and  no  cloistered 
saint  was  ever  more  responsive  to  its  central  light. 

Some  of  the  more  special  and  individual  attitudes  of  his 
mind  respecting  Christ  are  very  interesting.  A  few  years 
ago  there  was  undertaken  a  revision  of  the  Common 
Prayer  in  use  among  English  Unitarians,  a  book  first 
published  in  1862,  and  of  which  "insensible  changes"  of 
sentiment  made  desirable  some  "  changes  "  in  the  text. 
Naturally  Dr.  Martineau's  views  were  solicited,  and  he 
wrote  out  in  full  the  changes  he  would  have  made.  In 
transmitting  them  to  the  clergyman  who  had  the  enter- 
prise in  hand,  he  wrote,  "  I  can  take  no  interest  in  any 
book  of  common  prayer  that  does  not  recognize  the 
unique  place  of  Jesus  Christ."  When  eighty-six  years  of 
age,  he  was  asked  if  this  language  was  still  true  to  his 
mind,  and  he  answered  that  it  was.  That  "  unique  place," 
however,  must  be  such  as  Dr.  Martineau  could  give,  and 
that  was  quite  definitely  shown  in  his  critical  emenda- 
tions. It  is  no  very  uncommon  circumstance  to  meet  a 
Unitarian   clergyman   who   dislikes   the   name    Christ;    it 

1  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  iii.  p.  333. 

2  See  especially  p.  651. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGLVN  I99 

designates  an  office  which  he  feels  that  Jesus  did  not 
hold.  Dr.  Martineau,  on  the  contrary,  though  he  long 
ago  repudiated  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus,  and  was  anxious 
to  relieve  him  of  all  pretence  to  it,  yet  held  on  to  the 
name,  and  used  it  freely  and  reverently.  In  the  case  of 
one  so  scrupulous  as  he  in  the  use  of  terms,  this  cannot 
be  thought  to  follow  as  mere  habit  from  the  usage  of  an 
earlier  day;  and  had  he  been  questioned,  he  not  improb- 
ably would  have  claimed,  that  while  Jesus  was  not  at  all 
the  Christ  of  Old  Testament  prediction,  he  yet  holds,  by 
a  holier  anointing,  the  office  of  Christ  in  the  trust  and 
affection  and  reverence  of  Christendom.  The  name  Son, 
too,  as  applied  to  Jesus,  is  one  that  he  very  frequently 
used,  and  for  which  he  had  a  very  evident  liking.  He 
had,  indeed,  a  profound  conviction  of  universal  Sonship, 
as  he  who  reads  his  sermon  on  "  The  Finite  and  the 
Infinite  in  Human  Nature "  ^  may  learn.  The  Pauline 
distinction  between  "creature"  and  "sons,"  a  created 
nature  seen  in  all  structures  around  us  and  in  the  physi- 
cal organism  of  man,  and  a  begotten  nature,  met  in 
man's  inmost  spirit,  he  accepted  and  illuminated  and 
glorified.  But  of  this  latter  he,  like  Paul,  found  in 
Christ  the  supreme  illustration ;  nay,  as  he  taught,  it 
is  the  penetrating  radiance  of  his  life  that  awakens  us  to 
its  more  vivid  realization.  On  the  other  hand  the  terms 
"  Lord  "  and  "  Saviour  "  he  disliked  and  would  not  use ; 
they  were  impregnated  with  a  meaning  that  was  not  true 
to  him.  His  critical  changes  in  the  Common  Prayer  are 
mainly  illustrative  of  these  attitudes.  For  "  in  Christ 
Jesus  our  Lord,"  he  substitutes  "  by  thy  beloved  Son." 
Instead  of  "  everlasting  joy  and  felicity,  through  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord,"  he  would  say  "the  everlasting  joy  to 
which  thy  glorified  Son  hath  led  the  way."  "  For  thy 
mercy's   sake    in   Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,"  he  transforms 

^  Horns  of  Thought  on  Sacred  Things,  first  series. 


200  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

to  "  of  thy  compassion,  shown  in  the  tender  mercies  of 
Jesus  Christ."  "  We  bless  thee  for  .  .  .  the  redemption 
of  the  world  by  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,"  he  cancelled  in 
favor  of  "  we  bless  thee  for  .  ,  .  sending  thy  Son  to  be 
the  light  of  the  world."  "  Everlasting  joy  and  felicity, 
through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,"  he  changed  to  "  ever- 
lasting joy  and  felicity  to  which  thy  glorified  Son  hath 
led  the  way."  For  "  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ " 
he  wrote  "  nearer  the  spirit  of  thy  Son."  "  Grant  us 
every  blessing  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord "  he  would  ex- 
punge in  favor  of  "  make  us  joint  heirs  with  Christ  as 
children  of  God,"  Where  the  text  reads  "  we  beseech 
thee,  O  God,  to  hear  and  to  accept  us  as  true  disciples 
of  thy  Son,  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,"  he  would  have  peti- 
tions offered  "  with  the  submission  of  children,  and  the 
perfect  trust  of  thy  beloved  Son."  For  the  phrase 
"  Our  Saviour  "  he  sometimes  substituted  "  Jesus  Christ," 
and  sometimes  "  Forerunner."  "  Through  him  whom 
thou  hast  exalted  to  be  unto  us  a  Prince  and  Saviour," 
he  changed  to  "  As  we  look  unto  him  who  was  tempted 
as  we  are,  and  yet  without  sin."  These  changes  indi- 
cate with  sufficient  clearness  the  "  unique  position."  It 
is  not  that  of  an  outward  potentate,  nor  that  of  an 
official  Saviour,  but  that  of  the  supreme  prophet  of  the 
soul ;  of  one  endowed  with  eye  clear  to  the  Beatific 
Vision,  and  with  power  to  magnetize  unto  its  joy. 

III.  Interesting  as  are  his  attitudes  as  a  theologian, 
there  is  a  spirit  behind  them  that  interests  us  even  more. 
This  controversialist  who  stood  so  valiantly  for  his  truth, 
yet  believed  in  a  unity  of  spirit,  and  strove  to  show  the 
way  to  it.  An  absolutely  free  intellect  was  indeed  indis- 
pensable to  him,  and  he  would  have  held  dearer  any  lone- 
liness and  isolation  with  this,  than  any  fellowship  without 
it;    but  this  allowed   him,   as  he  would   religiously  have 


THE   CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGIAN  201 

allowed  it  to  any  other,  the  differences  that  should  have 
made  fraternal  worship  impossible  would  have  needed  to 
be  very  radical  indeed.  Of  course  where  there  is  united 
service  there  must  be  points  of  intellectual  sympathy :  no 
group  of  people  can  come  together  in  the  worship  of  God 
unless  there  be  a  common  belief  that  there  is  a  God ;  or  in 
discipleship  of  Christ,  unless  in  some  sense  they,  in  com- 
mon, recognize  him  as  their  master.  But  the  difference  is 
incalculable  between  ultimates  of  belief  such  as  these  and 
requirements  of  doctrine  such  as  the  sects  impose;  and 
Dr.  Martineau  dreamed  his  dream — the  foolishness  of 
his  day,  but  possibly  the  blessed  reahty  of  a  wiser  fu- 
ture —  of  a  worship  in  approaching  which  these  require- 
ments shall  not  be  required  ;  when  theological  animosities 
shall  no  longer  keep  apart  those  whom  a  common  love 
should  otherwise  unite.  He  also  dreamed  his  dream  of 
a  Church  deeply  based  upon  the  religious  sentiment,  toil- 
ing on  from  age  to  age,  changing  its  doctrines  as  new 
light  comes,  yet  without  breach  in  the  continuity  of  its 
life.  Here  are  two  distinct  conceptions,  though  they 
express  one  spirit.  The  former  deems  it  possible  to  find 
points  of  union  amid  existing  diversities;  the  latter 
dreams  of  an  organization  of  which  doctrinal  features 
shall  not  be  dominant  and  obtrusive.  No  abatement  of 
the  profound  research,  no  rest  for  the  restless  mind, 
no  truce  even  to  polemic  strife.  You  need  not  make 
your  zeal  for  truth  the  less  because  you  magnify  your 
love. 

The  former  was  borne  in  upon  him,  as  it  has  been  borne 
in  upon  so  many  others,  by  contemplating  sectarian  divi- 
sions in  contrast  with  the  common  truth  out  of  which  they 
spring.  Scattered  through  his  various  writings  are  many 
tentatives  towards  reconciliation,  but  one  stands  out  con- 
spicuously before  all  others,  a  remarkable  paper  entitled 
"  A  Way  out  of  the  Trinitarian  Controversy,"  first  pub- 


202  JAMES  MARTINEAU 

lished  in  the  Christian  Reformer  in  1886.^  If  he  could 
show  Unitarian  and  Trinitarian  a  basal  truth  in  which  both 
agree,  it  would  seem  possible  to  bring  to  an  end  one  of 
the  most  stubborn  and  bitter  antagonisms  of  Christian  his- 
tory. This  he  does  in  a  manner  unique,  noble,  persuasive, 
worthy  of  his  great  intellect  and  his  great  heart ;  though 
one  which  neither  Trinitarian  nor  Unitarian  has  as  yet 
shown  any  marked  interest  to  embrace ;  and  it  is  probable 
that  the  wearisome  and  profitless  contention  must  go  on 
many  years  longer.  It  is  something,  however,  that  the 
way  is  laid  open ;  the  manifest  possibility  may  yet  tempt 
to  the  beautiful  achievement. 

Looking  into  the  depths  of  the  problem  of  the  Divine 
Nature,  whence  only  any  worthy  conception  of  it  is  to  be 
drawn,  he  finds  Unitarian  and  Trinitarian  strangely  misun- 
derstanding each  other.  The  cardinal  Unitarian  affirma- 
tion is  what?  Why,  "  One  God  in  one  Person."  But 
what  is  the  Unitarian's  working  conception  of  this  one 
Person?  The  Unitarian  genius  has  been,  prevailingly, 
little  speculative,  little  mystical.  It  has  an  impatience  of 
whatever  doctrine  cannot  be  presented  with  distinctness  of 
outline.  Accordingly  the  Unitarian  has  conceived  his 
God  rather  practically,  and  as  he  is  met  in  his  relation 
with  the  universe,  as  its  Creator  and  Sustainer.  With 
what  God  is  in  himself,  or  was  before  the  creative  fiat 
went  forth,  he  gives  himself  but  slight  concern.  His  God 
is  not  an  abstract  essence,  but  an  active  agency.  He  is 
the  "  Source  of  nature,  Soul  of  souls.  Lord  of  the  earth, 
and  Fountain  of  Grace,  appears  under  every  aspect  that  is 
divine,  and  fills  to  our  thought  the  whole  space  that  is 
accessible  to  affection,  trust,  and  adoration."  ^ 

^  To  be  found  also  in  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  ii.  See  also  an 
admirable  paper  on  the  same  subject  by  James  M.  Whiton,  in  the  New 
World,  vol.  ii. 

^  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  ii.  p.  529, 


THE   CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGIAN  203 

Such  is  the  Unitarian's  one  God  in  one  Person.  Over 
against  this  the  Trinitarian  offers  the  conception  of  one 
God  in  three  Persons.  Here  to  many  minds  is  a  source  of 
confusion:  One  God,  three  Persons.  It  contradicts  arith- 
metic ;  and  while  it  is  fiercely  maintained  on  one  side 
that  arithmetic  must  stand,  it  is  maintained  as  fiercely  on 
the  other  side  that  arithmetic  must  stand  contradicted. 
Many  Trinitarians  and  most  Unitarians  might  well  thank 
Dr.  Martineau  for  his  luminous  exposition  of  this  riddle. 
If  we  use  the  word  "  person"  here  in  the  distinct  and  defi- 
nite sense  in  which  we  are  accustomed  to  employ  it,  the  for- 
mula undoubtedly  yields  us  three  natures  whose  oneness  it 
is  quite  impossible  to  conceive;  and  that  multitudes  un- 
equal to  the  subtleties  of  Greek  speculation  so  use  it,  and 
thus  find  in  their  Trinity  a  Tritheism,  is  apparent  enough. 
But  this,  though  a  misconception  to  which  the  doctrine  is 
peculiarly  liable,  is  not  at  all  its  meaning.  To  come  to  its 
meaning,  our  idea  of  personality  must  part  with  its  clear 
distinctness;  "we  must  melt,  as  it  were,"  says  Dr.  Marti- 
neau, "  its  edges  away,  till  the  sharp  outline  is  gone,  and 
we  can  no  longer  tell  where  one  ends  and  another  begins, 
for  both  merge  in  a  common  ground.  We  must  think  of 
the  three  persons  as  so  many  nuclei  of  intenser  light, 
[what  figure  could  be  happier?]  distinguishable  amid  the 
universal  element  of  divine  thought,  around  which  the 
attributes  cluster  with  a  certain  preferential  afiinity,  with- 
out, however,  ceasing  to  exist  in  the  same  essence,  of  which 
all  are  alike  affirmable.  In  short,  the  ground  colour  of  the 
doctrine  is  laid  in  the  Greek  Pantheism,  which  conceived 
God  as  the  thinking  power  of  the  universe.  In  compari- 
son with  this  infinite  element.  Personality,  implying  con- 
centration and  distinction  of  qualities,  appeared  finite  and 
inadequate.  To  reconcile  the  two,  —  to  retain  the  mystic 
breadth  of  the  one,  with  the  human  intensity  of  the  other, 
personal   differences   were   superinduced    upon   a    Divine 


204  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

essence  that  underlies  them ;  and  the  absolutely  One  is 
revealed  as  relatively  Three."  ^  If  Trinitarian  apologist 
has  ever  offered  a  more  satisfactory  account  of  his  doc- 
trine, we  have  not  met  it. 

From  this  account  of  the  doctrine  it  is  easy  to  see  that 
distinct  predicates  respecting  the  First  Person  should  be 
difficult  to  form.  He  may  be  vaguely  conceived  like 
space  without  worlds,  or  like  life  without  living  beings; 
but  of  him  little  can  be  said.  Accordingly,  while  multi- 
tudes of  Trinitarians  talk  of  the  doings  of  the  Father  as 
familiarly  as  of  those  of  the  "  elder  Lord  Shaftesbury,"  the 
Trinitarian  creed  deeply  studied  gives  them  no  warrant 
for  so  doing.  The  creed  indeed  speaks  of  the  First  Per- 
son as  "  Maker  of  heaven  and  earth,  and  of  all  things 
visible  and  invisible ;  "  but  this  does  not  distinguish  him 
from  the  Second  Person,  of  whom  it  is  affirmed  that  "  by 
him  all  tilings  were  made!'  A  harmony  of  these  two 
statements  is  easily  realized  by  remembering  that  the 
creative  act  is  peculiarly  the  Son's;  that  only  as  acting 
through  the  Son  is  it  referred  to  the  Father.  And  accord- 
ant with  the  creed  is  the  teaching.  The  fashioning  of  the 
world,  the  creation  of  man,  the  shaping  of  the  long  drama 
of  history,  the  redemption,  the  final  judgment,  are  not  of 
the  Father,  but  of  the  Son.  Whatever  is  done  is  through 
the  agency  of  the  Son.  "  The  one  fundamental  idea  by 
which  the  two  personalities  are  meant  to  be  distinguished 
is  simply  this ;  that  the  first  is  God  in  his  primeval 
essence,  —  infinite  meaning  without  finite  indications  ;  the 
second  is  God  speaking  out  in  phenomena  and  fact,  and 
leaving  his  sign,  wherever  anything  comes  up  from  the 
deep  of  things,  or  merges  back  again."  ^ 

The  reason,  then,  why  the  First  Person  yields  so  few 
predicates  is  plain  enough :  "  The  moment  anything  arises, 

1  Essays,  Reviews,  atid  Addresses,  vol.  ii.  p.  530. 

2  Ibid.  p.  532. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGIAN  205 

it  is  the  Son."  Around  him,  therefore,  as  their  natural 
centre  cluster  all  events:  all  phenomena  of  nature,  life, 
history,  through  which  an  impression  of  the  Divine  is 
borne  in  upon  us.  The  firmament  showeth  the  handiwork 
and  the  heavens  tell  the  glory  of  the  So)i ;  and  since  all  dis- 
tinctive tokens  of  the  Divine  are  thus  of  him,  the  Father  is 
but  a  "  blank  of  infinite  possibility,  —  the  occult  potency  of 
all  perfection,  but  the  realized  stage  of  none  ;  "  and  though 
we  may  say  he  is  "  the  abyss  how  deep,"  or  "  the  heaven 
how  high,"  he  yet  offers  no  peculiar  power  or  grace  by 
which  the  mind  can  lay  hold  upon  him.  He  is  necessary 
as  a  background  to  our  thought,  but  presents  no  outline 
in  the  foreground.  He  is  as  the  vault  that  holds  the  stars, 
yet  were  itself  inscrutable  and  unguessed  but  for  them. 

This  most  fruitful  exposition  it  is  not  needful  to  follow 
further.  The  way  out  of  the  Trinitarian  Controversy,  as 
he  would  show  it,  is  through  the  recognition  of  a  common 
conception  under  different  names.  The  Trinitarian's  Son  is 
essentially  the  Unitarian's  Father.  The  Unitarian's  Father 
is  anything  but  a  colorless  and  metaphysical  Absolute; 
he  is  the  creating,  sustaining,  guiding  power  of  the  uni- 
verse, its  manifest  wisdom,  life,  and  love ;  and  the  Trinita- 
rian's Son  is  just  that.  When  the  Unitarian  says  Father, 
the  Trinitarian,  understanding  him  from  his  own  mind, 
supposes  him  to  refer  to  that  impalpable  abstraction,  the 
First  Person  of  his  Trinity,  in  whom  the  Unitarian,  as 
such,  has  scarcely  any  interest  at  all.  Not  unnaturally, 
therefore,  the  Trinitarian  conceives  a  coldness  and  love- 
lessness  fundamental  in  the  Unitarian  faith,  a  misjudg- 
ment  scarcely  intelligible  to  the  Unitarian.  On  the  other 
hand,  when  the  Trinitarian  says  Son,  the  Unitarian  is 
almost  sure  to  limit  his  view  to  the  Jesus  Christ  of  history, 
and  he  is  quite  aggrieved  that  a  man  should  thus  be  lifted 
to  a  God.  To  the  Trinitarian,  however,  the  historic  char- 
acter is  only  the  earthly  apparition  of  a  power  and  grace 


206  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

that  know  no  time  limitations,  but  are  coexistent  with  the 
life  of  God.  "  The  '  Son  '  comes  before  his  mind,  not  as  an 
historical  personage  at  all,  but  as  God's  eternal  expression 
of  himself,  —  the  thought  he  puts  forth  in  all  his  works 
and  ways,  manifested  through  all  ages  by  nature  and 
history;  but  concentrated  with  unique  brilliancy  in  the 
character  and  existence,  the  holy  life  and  redeeming  work 
of  Jesus."  In  short,  it  is  the  like  power,  the  like  wisdom, 
the  like  grace  that  under  different  names  they  both  con- 
template ;  the  Father  of  the  one  is  the  other's  Son;  and 
on  the  basis  of  this  recognition,  the  two  may  come 
together,  not  indeed  throughout,  but  on  the  common 
"  under-truth  "  of  their  faiths.  Dr.  Martineau  concludes 
with  a  reflection  which  multitudes  can  but  approve,  but 
which  few  are  likely  soon  to  embrace :  "  Let  the  advo- 
cates of  each  compare  them  together  from  this  point  of 
view,  with  mind  open,  not  to  words  only,  but  to  the  real 
thoughts  they  contain,  with  temper  sensitive  to  sympathy 
rather  than  to  divergency,  and  there  is  hope  that  we  may 
yet  all  come  into  the  unity  of  faith,  and  true  knowledge 
of  the  Son  of  God."i 

Such  is  his  attitude  on  this  divisive  problem,  and  in 
these  profound  and  reconciling  words  we  may  see  a  pre- 
vailing temper  of  his  mind  in  dealing  with  the  beliefs  of 
men.  Living  so  much  in  relation  with  the  "  under-truth 
that  feeds  the  roots  of  all  our  faiths,"  he  found  bases  of 
agreement  there  scarce  credible  to  less  thorough  minds. 
So  while  on  critical  grounds  none  were  more  exacting  in 
their  demands  than  he,  he  was  yet  haunted  by  the  sense 
of  an  underlying  unity  of  faith  which  it  grieved  his  great 
heart  that  so  few  others  should  recognize.  Indeed  it  may 
be  doubtful  if  there  was  a  Protestant  communion  that  he 
could  not  have  joined,  if  the  prescribed  conditions  had 
been  only  the    root   convictions.      He   could    have  wor- 

^  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  ii.  p.  538. 


THE   CHRISTIAN   THEOLOGIAN  20/ 

shipped  with  those  whose  doctrinal  attitude  was  farthest 
from  his  own,  and  then  labored  to  show  them  the  better 
way,  as  he  would  have  rejoiced  also  to  be  shown.  In 
fact,  while  his  theological  affiliations  were  Unitarian,  his 
religious  affiliations  were  with  the  deep  souls  of  Christen- 
dom ;  and  it  was  an  open  secret  that  his  religious  affilia- 
tions counted  with  him  for  more  than  his  theological. 

This  brings  us  to  a  second  conception.  "  The  under- 
truth  that  feeds  the  roots  of  all  our  faiths,"  he  could  com- 
mend to  the  attention  of  the  great  religious  bodies,  hoping 
it  might  charm  them  to  a  broader  sympathy.  Within 
his  own  religious  fellowship,  however,  he  could  at  least 
attempt  to  legislate  in  its  behalf;  and  this  he  did.  Doing 
it,  however,  he  found  that  the  sympathies  of  the  great 
majority  of  his  brethren  were  not  with  him ;  and  for 
many  years,  on  the  practical  application  of  the  "  under- 
truth,"  he  and  they  were  not  of  accordant  mind.  Thus 
it  happened  that  while  theologically  the  prophet  of  the 
more  advanced  Unitarianism,  ecclesiastically,  in  his  deep 
mind  and  heart,  he  was  not  Unitarian.  This  attitude, 
which  to  some  has  seemed  peculiar,  should  at  least  be 
explained. 

What  shall  we  make  basal  in  religious  organization? 
Shall  it  be  some  rapture  of  the  soul  or  some  conception 
of  the  intellect?  Shall  it  be  worship  or  dogma?  Suppose 
a  group  of  people  who  may  be  able  to  say,  "  We  love 
God "  and  "  We  believe  in  the  Unity  of  the  Divine 
Nature," — which  shall  they  put  forward  as  expressing 
their  cardinal  interest  and  invite  men  to  co-operate  with 
them  in  cultivating  and  extending,  the  love  or  the  belief? 
Shall  the  basis  of  their  organization  be  religious  or  shall 
it  be  theological?  The  practical  difference,  whether  one 
or  the  other,  is  very  great.  If  they  organize  on  the 
belief  in  the  Divine  Unity,  make  dominant,  that  is,  the 
fact  that  they  are  Unitarians,  however  tolerant  may  be 


208  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

their  professions,  they  make  impossible  the  approach  of 
any  sincere  soul  that  is  not  Unitarian ;  if  on  the  love  of 
God,  they  put  forward  a  principle  to  which  all  aspiring 
souls  may  respond.  Trinitarians  are  quite  as  likely  as 
Unitarians  to  love  God,  and,  agreeing  to  disagree,  they 
can  kneel  one  beside  the  other  at  a  common  altar.  Here, 
however,  in  the  far  prevailing  judgment  of  men,  is  an 
insuperable  difficulty:  they  cannot  agree  to  disagree. 
Unless  they  believe  alike,  they  cannot  pray  together. 

Dr.  Martineau  did  not  so  hold ;  he  deemed  it  possible, 
and  held  it  wise,  to  organize  on  the  love  and  not  the 
dogma.  Allowing  that  some  measure  of  agreement  is 
necessary  in  the  religious  grouping  of  men,  the  necessary 
extent  of  this  he  yet  held  to  be  greatly  exaggerated ;  and 
he  dreamed  his  dream  of  a  church  in  which  indeed  the 
Unitarian  shall  have  a  place,  but  which  shall  be  primarily 
and  declaredly  Christian  rather  than  Unitarian.  He  never 
indeed  overlooked  the  fact  that  intellectual  sympathies  will 
inevitably  have  much  to  do  with  the  bringing  of  men  to- 
gether ;  that  men  will,  to  a  wide  extent,  differentiate  them- 
selves on  lines  of  belief;  but  this  fact  he  held  not  to  make 
necessary  a  theological  dominance  in  a  body  organized 
for  the  nurture  of  religion. 

The  intensity  of  his  feeling  on  this  point  is  related  to  two 
or  three  matters  of  history  to  which  he  frequently  refers. 
English  Presbyterianism,  into  whose  ministry  he  was 
ordained,  would,  as  we  have  already  seen,  impose  no 
doctrinal  tests.  Beginning  with  the  severer  type  of  doc- 
trine of  Baxter's  time,  it  had  taken  new  light  as  it  had 
come,  had  advanced  and  meliorated  and  expanded,  until 
at  length  it  reached  the  confines  of  Unitarianism ;  or 
rather  we  might  more  accurately  say,  while  yet  prevailingly 
Trinitarian,  Unitarianism  had  become  quite  common  within 
its  rank.  Then  indeed  an  effort  was  made  to  bring  the 
organization  to  a  declaredly  Trinitarian  basis;  and  at  the 


THE   CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGIAN  209 

Salter's  Hall  Convention  in  London,  in  17 19,  the  debate 
was  earnest.  But  these  Presbyterians,  however  prevail- 
ingly they  may  have  disliked  Unitarianism,  refused  to  part 
with  their  liberty;  they  would  consent  to  no  doctrinal 
test  whatever.  Here  was  to  Dr.  Martineau  a  model 
that  he  liked  to  contemplate  —  "a  living  church  with 
chaneine  creed,"  —  and  one  which  he  never  wearied  of 
commending. 

But  now  another  incident.     In  the  year  1825  the  British 
and  Foreign    Unitarian   Association   was   formed.     Here 
was  a  contrast:  the  convention  at  Salter's  Hall,  though 
preponderantly   Trinitarian,    for    the    sake    of    fellowship 
of  those    of  another  mind,  refused    to   declare  itself  so ; 
the  convention  at  Finsbury  Hall   declared    the  organiza- 
tion that  it  formed  Unitarian.     Which  offered  the   more 
marked  example  of  tenderness  for  intellectual  conviction, 
the    Trinitarians   who    would  take  no    stand    that    should 
banish  Unitarians  from  their  fellowship,  or  the  Unitarians 
who    took  a  stand  that  made  the  fellowship  of  any  but 
Unitarians    impossible?      It   should   be    possible    for   the 
candid   Unitarian  to  see    how  Dr.    Martineau    might  see 
that  more  conspicuous  example  in  the  former.     It  ought 
to    be    said    that  the   form    in   which   the  question  came 
before    these    respective    bodies   was    different,    and    that 
therefore  there  was  not  an  exact  parallelism  in  their  con- 
duct.    At  Salter's  Hall  the  question  was.  Shall  the  minis- 
ter coming  to  our  rank  be  required  to  subscribe  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity?  and  the  answer,  after  long  debate, 
was  no.     At  Finsbury  Hall  they  found  themselves  Unitarian 
and  named  themselves  accordingly,  and  why  should  they 
not?     Certainly  no  ethical  objection  is  to  be  urged  against 
their   conduct,   and   most  felt  that  the  action  was  practi- 
cally wise.     But  however  unlike  the  circumstances  of  the 
two  bodies,   and   however  dissimilar  the  things  they  re- 
spectively   did,    it    is    difficult   to    disown    the    fact    that 

14 


2IO  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

the  Unitarians  turned  away  from  the  large  inclusiveness 
which  Presbyterianism  from  first  to  last  proclaimed  and 
exemplified. 

Yet  another  incident,  of  painful  but  illuminating  sugges- 
tiveness,  was  soon  to  occur.  In  England,  as  in  America, 
the  largest  liberty  and  the  most  catholic  sympathy  have 
been  the  profession  and  even  the  boast  of  Unitarians; 
their  ability  to  maintain  this  noble  claim  with  the  Uni- 
tarian flag  ever  in  the  van,  was  brought  to  a  proof  that 
proved  it  wanting.  In  the  time  of  Charles  II.,  a  benevo- 
lent woman.  Lady  Hewley,  of  Presbyterian  affiliation,  be- 
queathed certain  funds  for  religious  and  charitable  uses. 
These,  placed  in  the  care  of  those  in  religious  sympathy 
with  her,  at  length  came  into  the  hands  of  Unitarians. 
The  question  arose  among  the  enemies  of  Unitarianism, 
whether  Unitarians  could  be  the  lawful  custodians  of  funds 
given  by  one  who  was  not  a  Unitarian,  and  who  never  con- 
ceived their  being  administered  in  the  interest  of  Unita- 
rianism. But  if  these  funds  could  be  taken  away  from 
Unitarians,  why  not  also  the  chapels  which  Presbyterian 
money  had  built,  and  which  had  come  into  Unitarian  hands 
through  the  fact  that  their  congregations  had  become 
Unitarian?  In  less  than  a  decade  after  the  organization 
of  the  Unitarian  Association,  the  Unitarians  were  called  to 
meet  this  twofold  issue  before  a  legal  tribunal.  The  plea  it 
needed  to  impress  upon  the  court  was  that  the  Presby- 
terians were  an  undogmatic  and  purely  Christian  body 
which,  unrestrained  by  creed,  had  through  the  slow  modi- 
fication of  opinion  come  to  the  Unitarian  attitude,  and  that 
the  Unitarians,  also  an  undogmatic  and  purely  Christian 
body,  were  their  natural  successors  and  heirs ;  that  one 
with  Lady  Hewley  in  the  deep  fellowship  of  the  spirit, 
they  only  differed  from  her  as,  after  an  interval  of  two 
hundred  years,  it  was  inevitable  that  they  should  differ. 
But  at  once  it  was  seen  that  the  name  Unitarian  which 


THE   CHRISTIAN   THEOLOGIAN  211 

they  had  taken  made  impossible  the  claim  that  they  were 
an  undogmatic  body.  It  said,  by  the  clearest  implication, 
that  the  large  fellowship  of  the  spirit  which  was  the  all- 
ruling  feature  of  Lady  Hewley's  worship  had  been  put 
by,  and  that,  too,  in  the  interest  of  a  dogma  that  was  none 
of  Lady  Hewley's,  To  meet  the  exigency,  therefore,  there 
was  formed  in  a  committee-room  of  the  Association  a  new 
organization  under  the  Presbyterian  name,  to  make  in 
court  the  contention  impossible  to  itself.^  This  series  of 
incidents,  —  the  noble  action  of  the  Salter's  Hall  conven- 
tion, the  adoption  of  the  Unitarian  name,  and  with  it  a 
dogmatic  standard,  at  Finsbury  Hall,  an  act  that  brought 
the  Unitarians  into  the  sharpest  contrast  with  the  Presby- 
terians, the  action  to  which  the  Association  was  driven  in 
the  Lady  Hewley  suit,  together  made  a  deep  impression 
upon  the  mind  of  Dr.  Martineau.^ 

The  contention  turns  on  the  employment  of  a  name ; 
and  some  earnest  spirit  asks.  Why  not  employ  it?  If 
you  are  Unitarian,  w^hy  not  call  yourself  such?  Indeed, 
why  not?  Dr.  Martineau  not  only  concedes  your  right, 
but  urges  it  upon  you  as  a  duty  so  to  do.  No  man  has 
more  earnestly  pressed  the  importance  of  distinctly  formed 
and  frankly  declared  religious  conviction  than  he,  and  no 
man  has  taken  to  himself  the  Unitarian  name  by  more 
fervid  proclamation.  But  if  an  individual  should  do  thus, 
why  not  a  group  of  individuals  to  whom  Unitarianism  is 

^  The  case  was  decided  against  the  Unitarians.  The  funds  were  trans- 
ferred to  Trinitarian  custody,  and  the  chapels  were  lost.  The  latter,  how- 
ever, were  restored  to  the  Unitarians  by  act  of  Parliament  in  1S44. 

2  On  this  subject  he  has  left  a  considerable  record.  See  "  Address,  on 
Occasion  of  Laying  the  Foundation  Stone  of  a  New  Church  in  Hope 
Street,"  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  iv. ;  also  "  The  Unitarian  Posi- 
tion," vol.  ii.,  and  "  Church- Life .'  or  Sect-Life  ?  "  and  "  New  Affinities  of 
Faith,"  in  the  same  volume.  In  the  Theological  Revie'w,  April,  1S66,  he 
printed  an  article  on  "  The  Living  Church  through  Changing  Creeds," 
and  at  the  National  Conference  held  at  Leeds,  April,  18S8,  he  gave  an 
address,  afterwards  printed  in  pamphlet,  on  "  Church  Organization." 


212  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

a  common  conviction?  Again  why  not?  If  the  cardinal 
and  all-directing  purpose  be  to  persuade  men  of  the 
Unity  of  the  Divine  Nature,  why,  talie  name  accordingly. 
A  Unitarian  society  is  thus  as  legitimate  as  a  temperance 
society,  or  an  historical  society.  Like  these  it  stands  for 
a  distinct  and  definite  purpose  that  may  be  very  wise,  but 
to  the  subordination  of  all  else.  These  illustrations  may 
guide  our  thought  to  the  point  at  issue,  as  Dr.  Martineau 
conceives  it.  Is  your  church  but  as  a  temperance  or  an 
historical  society?  He  answers  no.  "A  man's  '  Church' 
must  be  the  home  of  whatever  he  most  deeply  loves, 
trusts,  admires,  and  reveres,  —  of  whatever  most  divinely 
expresses  the  essential  meaning  of  the  Christian  faith 
and  life."  ^  Does  the  doctrine  of  the  Divine  Unity  em- 
brace all  this  under  its  shelter?  As  one  takes  reckoning 
of  whatever  he  most  deeply  loves,  trusts,  admires,  and 
reveres,  of  whatever  most  divinely  expresses  to  him  the 
essential  meaning  of  the  Christian  faith  and  life,  how  little 
of  it  does  he  find  in  association  with  this  dogma  !  So  far 
as  the  dogma  is  divisive,  —  and  the  limits  of  permissible 
fellowship  under  it  are  the  narrowest,  —  in  insisting  that 
his  ecclesiastical  structure  shall  be  built  upon  it,  he  turns 
from  the  home  with  which  so  many  affections  are  asso- 
ciated, and  elects  an  isolated  hermitage.  Instead  of  the 
spiritual  and  universal  and  eternal,  he  builds  upon  the 
speculative  and  the  individual.  The  contrast  is  empha- 
sized by  a  further  distinction  on  which  it  is  profitable  to 
meditate :  On  the  former  a  cJmrch  may  be  builded ;  on 
the  latter  only  at  most  and  best,  a  sect.  "It  is  the  con- 
scious sameness  of  spiritual  relations,"  says  Dr.  Martineau, 
"that  constitutes  a  Cliurch;  it  is  the  temporary  concur- 
rence in  theological  opinion  that  embodies  itself  in  a  creed 
and  makes  a  Sect  in  the  proper  sense."  "The  very  life 
and  soul  of  the  former,"  he  continues,  "  so  far  as  we  are  con- 

1  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addi-esses,  vol.  ii.  j).  376. 


THE   CHRISTIAN   THEOLOGIAN  213 

cerned,  is  in  the  feeling  and  proclamation  of  unity  in  spite 
of  difference.  The  essence  of  the  latter  is  in  the  accen- 
tuation of  difference  amid  unity,  —  in  the  imitative  accep- 
tance of  the  very  principle  and  mode  of  thought  whence 
other  sects  arise."  He  adds,  "  We  are  bound,  I  must 
think,  to  hold  our  particular  form  of  personal  opinion  on 
a  very  different  tenure  from  the  spiritual  affections  which 
bring  successive  generations  to  kneel  in  our  churches ;  to 
treat  the  former  as  a  life  interest,  the  latter  as  a  freehold 
in  perpetuity;  and  to  beware  of  fixing  upon  worshipping 
assemblies  and  an  ecclesiastical  body  whose  life  runs  on 
through  centuries,  the  mutable  types  of  thought  special 
to  our  own  time."  ^  From  this  point  of  view  we  can 
surely  understand  him  when  he  adds,  "  To  a  Unitarian 
Society, — just  as  to  a  Reform  Society,  —  I  would  willingly 
belong,  but  of  a  '  Unitarian  Church  '  I  could  never  be  a 
member."  2 

That  utterance  such  as  this  should  draw  upon  him  some 
severities  of  criticism,  especially  from  those  who  mistake 
sectarian  zeal  for  Christian  steadfastness,  was  doubtless 
inevitable ;  ^  but  the  thoughtful  Unitarian,  out  of  his  own 
experience,  should  at  least  understand  him.  Where  is 
there  such  an  one  who  does  not  realize  that  his  spiritual 
affinities  run  wide  of  his  theological  relations?  The  books 
he  turns  to,  not  for  theological  instruction,  but  for  reli- 
gious nurture,  which  most  arouse  him,  elevate  him,  com- 
fort him,  strengthen  him,  how  prevailingly  are  they  the 
production  of  other  than  Unitarians  !  The  heroes  of  the 
faith  whose  example  most  enkindles,  and  of  whose  deeds 
of  love  and  sacrifice  he  most  likes  to  tell,  wandering  back 
from  heaven  as  they  went  thither,  he  knows  could  only 

1  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  ii.  pp.  372-373- 

2  Ibid.  p.  374. 

^  If  any  one  wishes  to  see  specimens  of  such  criticism,  let  him  turn  to 
the  Christian  Reformer  for  1859,  and  the  files  of  the  Ingiiirer  for  the  same 
period. 


214  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

disown  the  fellowship  that  implied  acceptance  of  his 
dogma.  He  looks  upon  illustrious  contemporaries,  toil- 
ing with  a  devotion  he  can  but  reverence,  and  diffusing  a 
life  which  he  is  sure  is  the  light  of  men ;  and  he  knows  by 
unmistakable  tokens  that  in  the  deeps  of  the  spirit  he  is 
one  with  them :  — 

"  One  in  the  freedom  of  the  truth, 
One  in  the  joy  of  paths  untrod, 
One  in  the  soul's  perennial  youth, 
One  in  the  larger  thought  of  God; " 

yet  the  hand-clasp  which  this  oneness  should  make  spon- 
taneous and  glad  is  rendered  impossible  through  a  name 
he  has  assumed  and  a  flag  he  carries.  For  while  in  a 
beautiful  sense  it  is  true  that 

"  Stone  walls  do  not  a  prison  make," 

and  that  spiritual  sympathies  may  roam  free  whatever  the 
restrictions  of  dogma ;  yet  is  it  also  true,  that  no  other 
restrictions  so  isolate,  no  other  separations  so  separate,  as 
dogmatic  ones.  To  men  of  shallow  natures  this  situation 
may  be  satisfactory :  they  may  live  within  a  sectarian  en- 
closure and  yearn  for  no  larger  love ;  but  to  a  susceptible 
and  fervid  nature  like  Dr.  Martineau's,  it  is  scarce  toler- 
able. Any  such  can  feel  with  him  when  he  writes,  "  that 
I  find  myself  in  intellectual  accordance  with  the  Socini,  or 
Blandrata,  or  Servetus  in  one  cardinal  doctrine,  —  and  that 
a  doctrine  not  distinctively  Christian,  but  belonging  also 
to  Judaism,  to  Islam,  and  to  simple  Deism,  —  is  as  nothing 
compared  with  the  intense  response  wrung  from  me  by 
some  of  Luther's  readings  of  St.  Paul,  and  by  his  favorite 
book,  the  '  Theologia  Germanica.'  "  ^  Such  also  can 
understand  how,  to  be  torn  away  from  the  great  company 
of  devout  souls,  in  which  Wesley  and  Keble  and  Pascal 
and  St.  Augustine  are  enrolled,  and  with  whom  his  spirit 

1  JSssays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  ii.  p.  376. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGIAN  21$ 

is  most  deeply  affiliated,  he  should  regard  "  an  unnatural " 
and  "  an  inadmissible  fate."  His  attitude,  if  some  had  not 
apparently  found  it  incomprehensible,  we  should  say  was 
the  clearest  possible.  Be  faithful  to  your  intellect,  he 
would  say,  —  always  that ;  seek  the  truth  with  all  earnest- 
ness, and  proclaim  it  with  all  fervor.  But  building  a 
church,  the  central  feature  of  which  should  be  an  altar, 
not  a  doctrine,  make  basal  and  prominent  the  truth  that 
unites,  not  the  speculation  that  divides.  You  hold  to  the 
Love  of  God  and  the  Divine  Unity  ;  hold  fast  to  the  Divine 
Unity,  but  rear  your  church  to  the  Love  of  God.  Let  the 
doctrine  be  your  personal  conviction ;  let  the  Love  be 
your  public  confession.  In  the  one  you  hold  to  a  theory 
in  which  a  few  shall  agree  with  you,  in  the  other  to  a  sen- 
timent in  which  Christendom  is  at  one  with  you.  Others 
by  dogmatic  barriers  keep  you  away  from  them,  see  to  it 
that  by  no  dogmatic  barrier  do  you  hold  them  away  from 
you.  They  may  not  come  at  your  invitation,  none  the 
less  let  yours  be  the  open  door  and  the  proffered  welcome. 
Bring  yourself,  not  merely  into  mystic  sympathy,  but  into 
open  relation  with  all  reverent  and  aspiring  souls.  Let 
there  be  one  church  however  small  and  feeble,  theological 
indeed  in  the  privileges  of  its  members,  but  religious  in  its 
aim,  and  in  all  the  features  of  its  organization.  Thus  has 
he  pleaded  with  his  brethren,  shut  out  from  the  dominant 
churches  by  a  Trinitarian  orthodoxy,  yet  bent  on  estab- 
lishing a  Unitarian  orthodoxy  over  against  it.  This  lan- 
guage, it  must  be  said,  speaks  true  to  the  conscious  purpose 
of  few  Unitarians :  in  England,  as  in  America,  they  have 
proclaimed  the  largest  liberty.  Come  with  us,  they  have 
said,  believing  what  you  must,  and  no  question  shall  be 
asked  you  ;  and  they  have  sometimes  been  quite  troubled 
in  spirit  that  an  invitation  so  cordial  should  be  received  so 
coldly.  The  Trinitarian  might  say.  Your  invitation  has  a 
generous  sound,  but  I  cannot  ignore  the   fact  that   you 


2l6  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

organize  on  a  view  of  the  Divine  Nature  the  very  opposite 
of  mine.  However  you  talk  of  the  worship  that  unites, 
you  have  drawn  with  unmistakable  distinctness  the  line 
that  divides.  Your  temple  door  stands  hospitably  open, 
but  over  it  is  inscribed  Unitarian.  Dr.  Martineau  puts 
himself  in  the  Trinitarian's  place,  and  clearly  sees  that  by 
that  inscription  the  Unitarian  makes  his  own  pretension 
impossible;  that  by  making  the  way  of  approach  a 
dogma,  he  bars  away  from  the  large  fellowship  of  the 
spirit;  and  this,  vividly  conscious  of  spiritual  affinities  and 
eager  to  place  their  claims  before  every  other,  he  felt  to 
be  an  unnecessary  and  a  sad  mistake.^ 

The   ecclesiastical    ideal   of  Dr.    Martineau,    expressed 
in  the  happy  title  of  one  of  his  essays,  was  a   "  Living 

^  It  is  pleasant  to  find  that  others  looking  across  the  line  of  sectarian 
division  from  the  opposite  direction  may  reciprocate  his  feeling.  Thus 
A.  H.  Craufurd,  in  his  C/trtstiatt  Instincts  and  Modern  Doubt,  speaking  of 
Dr.  Martineau  says  :  "  I  cannot  help  feeling  painfully  that  a  church  which 
has  no  room  in  it  for  the  devoutly  Christian  genius  of  Dr.  Martineau  is  a 
national  church  only  in  a  very  defective  way.  It  does  indeed  seem  strange 
that  we  should  exclude  from  our  worship  and  our  fellowship  that  saint  and 
seer  who  has  in  our  time  been  by  far  the  best  and  noblest  exponent  of  the 
essential  verities  of  our  Master's  religion.  To  claim  for  ourselves  that  we 
are  nearer  to  Jesus  than  he  is  would  indeed  be  a  thing  most  absurd  and  im- 
pudent. To  put,  or  even  seem  to  put,  a  stigma  on  the  greatest  religious 
teacher  of  our  age  is  a  thing  from  which  we  may  well  shriuk.  We  grateful 
and  devoted  followers  do  indeed  know  well  that  'the  disciple  is  not  above 
his  master,'  but  immeasurably  below  him.  All  the  present  nominal  leaders 
of  our  church  taken  collectively  would  not  make  one  James  Martineau. 
How,  then,  can  we  presume  to  banish  from  the  fold  of  Christ  this  His 
greatest  and  most  faithful  servant  and  son  ?  How  can  we  hurl  at  him  the 
harsh  and  unchristian  anathemas  of  the  Athanasian  Creed  f  For  my  part  I 
will  freely  own  that,  when  I  am  supposed  to  be  declaring  that  he  shall 
'without  doubt  perish  everlastingly  '  by  reason  of  his  Unitarian  errors,  I  find 
myself  instinctively  exclaiming  as  I  see  him  soaring  upwards  into  the  divine 
presence,  '  He  has  outsoared  the  shadow  of  our  night ; '  '  My  Father,  my 
Father  !  the  chariot  of  Israel  and  the  horsemen  thereof.'  It  will  indeed  be 
well  for  us  if  only  a  small  portion  of  his  sacred  spirit  shall  descend  upon 
us.  We  do  not  even  dare  to  hope,  as  Elisha  hoped  concerning  Elijah,  '  that 
a  double  portion'  of  his  sublime  spirit  may  descend  upon  us.  When  /le  goes 
his  mantle  is  not  likely  to  fall  on  any  successor."  (pp.  259-260.)  This  in 
some  points  may  seem  an  exaggcratiou  ;  but  the  attitude  is  noble. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGIAN  21/ 

Church  through  Changing  Creeds ;  "  or,  what  means  the 
same  thing,  a  "  Progressive  Theology  amid  sameness  of 
Spiritual  Relations."  ^  But  this  can  obviously  never  be  save 
where  "  spiritual  relations "  are  the  ever  dominant  ones. 
The  weakness  that  has  been  the  evil  genius  of  Protes- 
tantism, which  makes  necessary  a  new  church  as  the 
organ  of  a  new  religious  conviction,  must  surely  pursue 
it,  while,  recognizing  free  inquiry,  we  yet  build  upon 
dogmatic  foundations.  Continuity  of  life  there  can  be 
none  for  the  church  that  does  not  build  upon  the  deeper 
love  and  diviner  aspiration.  The  fathers  may  conceive 
that  they  are  building  for  the  sons,  but  the  sons  must 
excommunicate  the  fathers.  The  "  changing  creed,"  where 
creed  is  the  fundamental  fact,  makes  impossible  the  "  liv- 
ing church."  This  consideration,  brought  before  the  vivid 
imagination  of  Dr.  Martineau,  has  counted  for  much. 
Very  early  his  stand  was  taken.  In  1848,  in  an  address 
on  the  occasion  of  the  laying  of  the  foundation  stone  of 
his  new  church  in  Liverpool,  he  spoke  these  eloquent 
words :  "  VVe  know  what  we  believe ;  we  love  what  we 
believe ;  we  plainly  tell  what  we  believe ;  I  am  a  Uni- 
tarian ;  you,  who  meet  here  from  week  to  week,  are 
doubtless  Unitarian  too ;  but  the  society  of  worshippers, 
of  which  we  are  only  the  living  members,  and  the  Church 
erected  here,  of  which  we  shall  be  but  transiettt  tenants, 
these  are  not  to  be  defined  as  Unitarian.  To  stamp  them 
with  such  a  doctrinal  name,  would  be  to  perform  an  act  of 
posthumous  expulsion  against  many  noble  dead  whom  it 
is  an  honour  to  revere ;  and  perhaps  to  provoke  against 
ourselves,  from  a  future  age,  the  retribution  of  a  like  ex- 
communication. In  refusing  to  commit  our  churches  to  a 
determinate  system,  we  protest  against  the  imputation  of 
the  least  indifference  to  truth.  We  simply  carry  out,  in 
affairs  of  religion,  the  rule  which  is  followed  in   all  wise 

1  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  ii.  p.  372. 


2l8  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

endowments  for  the  advancement  of  knowledge.  .  .  .  In- 
stitutes of  Science  and  halls  of  learning  are  created,  not 
to  sustain  the  theories  of  their  day,  however  earnestly 
adopted  by  the  first  founders ;  but  in  the  assurance  that 
Nature  and  the  human  intellect  will  ever  seek  to  converse 
together,  and  that  a  place  that  aids  their  meeting  will  be 
a  welcome  heritage  to  any  age.  .  .  .  And  why  may  not 
our  Churches  rise,  not  in  blind  expectation  of  perpetuity 
for  the  present  types  and  classifications  of  theology,  but 
in  pure  faith  that  God  and  the  human  soul  will  ever  seek 
each  other ;  and  that,  so  long  as  Heavenly  Mercy  shall 
stoop,  and  earthly  aspiration  rise,  a  court  of  audience  for 
trust  and  prayer  cannot  be  obsolete."  ^ 

The  glance  here  is  mainly  backward ;  he  is  not  willing 
to  excommunicate  the  fathers.  But  there  is  also  a  forward 
look ;  true  and  vital  as  he  may  hold  his  beliefs,  he  would 
not  fasten  them  upon  the  sons  as  a  condition  of  entering 
on  their  churchly  heritage.  An  academy  dedicated  to 
science,  the  ever  progressive  interpretation  of  nature,  is 
ideal  in  its  conception  ;  but  an  academy  reared  in  other 
times  to  perpetuate  and  diffuse  the  theory  of  phlogiston, 
or  of  cataclasms,  or  the  corpuscular  theory  of  light,  all 
once  believed  and  expounded  by  the  best  minds  of  the 
world,  would  wear  to-day  a  singular  look.  So  far  as  suc- 
cessful in  its  aim  it  could  only  perpetuate  an  anachronism, 
—  as  churches  reared  in  the  interest  of  dogma  have  surely 
done.  This  to  Dr.  Martineau  is  an  intolerable  thought. 
That  truth  may  freely  unfold,  the  problems  of  thought 
must  be  met  by  the  unpledged  mind.  The  Unitarian 
objection  to  creeds,  he  holds  never  to  have  been  so  suc- 
cessful on  the  intellectual  side  disproving  their  truthful- 
ness, as  on  the  moral  side  challenging  their  rightfulness. 
To  his  fellow-beHevers  he  says :  "  In  clearing  your  con- 
science and  uttering  your  truth  to-day,  respect  the  con- 
1  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  iv.  pp.  439-440. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGIAN  2ig 

science  and  the  truth  of  to-morrow.  You  are  mortal ;  the 
Church  is  immortal;  your  own  portion  of  it  counts,  and  is 
to  count,  by  centuries.  In  your  personal  action  on  your 
own  time,  use  without  stint  the  right,  discharge  without 
fear  the  duties,  of  an  ingenuous  Christian  soul.  But  in 
providing  for  the  Future,  which  belongs  to  other  con- 
sciences and  not  to  yours,  —  in  speaking  for  the  Church 
into  which  you  were  born  and  from  which  you  will  die, 
—  remember  that  your  concern  with  it  is  not  discretion- 
ary, but  fiduciary;  beware  of  entailing  upon  it  a  perma- 
nent tribute  to  your  own  opinions;  and  see  to  it,  that  you 
close  not  against  another  age  any  door  which  you  found 
open  for  your  own."  ^ 

Such  was  his  attitude,  and  such  the  difference,  long 
continued  and  sometimes  earnest,  between  him  and  his 
Unitarian  brethren.  They  would  establish  a  Unitarian 
Church ;  he  pleaded  for  a  Church  of  God  and  Christ. 
They  would  build  upon  a  doctrine,  he  upon  a  reverence 
and  a  love.  They  would  organize  to  fight  down  an  error, 
he  to  build  up  a  faith.  They  would  take  to  themselves  a 
dogmatic  designation,  he  would  have  found  a  religious 
one,  or  at  least  one  carrying  no  dogmatic  suggestion. 
The  regret  on  both  sides  was  considerable:  on  theirs, 
that  their  theological  leader  could  not  be  also  in  the 
broadest  sense  their  ecclesiastical  co-laborer;  on  his,  that 
the  close  fellowship  of  his  brethren  was  not  quite  com- 
patible with  the  larger  fellowship  of  his  heart. 

That  the  same  religious  societies,  organized  as  Dr. 
Martineau  would  have  organized  them,  would  have  done 
better  religious  work,  any  one  has  a  right  to  believe  or  to 
disbelieve;  but  one  thing  is  certain,  that  Unitarianism  as 
a  counter-orthodoxy,  whether  in  England  or  America,  has 
had  no  marked  success.  Its  Unitarian  proclamation  has 
been  rather  a  gauntlet  it  has  thrown  down,  than  an  invita- 

1  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  ii.  pp.  383-3S4. 


220  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

tion  it  has  put  forth;  it  has  been  driven  to  much  self- 
explanation;  its  tone  has  been  critical,  its  temper  cold. 
This  may  not  have  been  because  its  emphasis  was  on  the 
wrong  interest,  — the  dogma  from  which  it  takes  its  name 
rather  than  the  love  that  it  should  serve,  —  but  many  have 
thought  so,  and  among  them  Dr.  Martineau. 

In  recent  years  too,  especially  in  England,  Unitarianism 
has  shown  a  marked  tendency  to  secularization,  the  prob- 
lems of  society  winning  from  the  interest  once  given  to  the 
profounder  problems  of  the  faith,  than  which  no  tendency 
could  have  been  more  foreign  to  the  spirit  of  Dr.  Martineau. 
In  this  tendency,  too,  the  Unitarian  is  not  sharply  distin- 
guished from  other  bodies ;  it  only  conspicuously  illus- 
trates a  spirit  that  is  abroad,  which  Dr.  Martineau,  watchful 
of  all  phases  of  religious  phenomena,  viewed  with  a  regret 
which  only  his  profound  trust  could  comfort.  In  a  letter  to 
the  present  writer,  in  answer  to  a  question  as  to  the  out- 
look from  the  summit  of  his  years,  he  replied :  "  You 
ask  me  in  what  light  old  age  presents  to  me  the  world  I 
am  so  soon  to  quit.  Often  do  I  wish  that  I  could  see  it 
dressed  in  such  a  radiant  sunshine  of  immediate  promise 
as  cheers  the  nonagenarian  vigor  of  our  dear  friend,  Dr. 
Furness.i  But  did  I  not  'live  by  faith,'  —  had  I  to  'live 
by  sight '  of  the  social  and  spiritual  tendencies  preponder- 
ating now,  I  should  breathe  my  parting  word  in  tune  more 
with  Jeremiah  than  with  Isaiah.  For  our  httle  Israel's 
participation  in  the  future  of  English  religious  history,  I 
have  less  and  less  hope  every  year.  But  all  the  Divine 
possibilities  remain  locked  in  our  humanity,  and  sure, 
either  here  or  there,  to  free  themselves  into  realization. 
Resting  in  this,  I  can  lay  to  sleep  all  impatient  haste,  and 
wait  His  time," 

1  This  letter  was  written  in  1892. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE  NEW   TESTAMENT   CRITIC 

Behind  belief  is  a  reason  for  believing.  What  is  the  '  seat 
of  authority,'  or  the  ultimate  support  of  religious  belief? 
Keeping  ourselves  within  Christian  boundaries,  and  dis- 
carding mere  eccentricities  of  opinion,  we  find  three  answers 
to  this  question. 

First,  there  is  that  of  the  Roman  Catholic.  His  ulti- 
mate authority  is  his  Church.  Its  origin  is  divine :  it  is 
the  earthly  embodiment  of  a  heavenly  ideal ;  its  head  is 
the  vicegerent  of  Christ  and  speaks  in  his  name.  The 
natural  attitude  before  it,  therefore,  is  one  of  reverent  sub- 
mission.    To  question  is  irreverence,  to  doubt  is  impiety. 

The  second  is  that  of  the  evangelical  Protestant.  His 
appeal  is  to  an  infallible  Bible.  The  Scriptures,  Jewish  and 
Protestant,  are  a  message  by  which  heaven  makes  known 
its  will  to  man.  Theories  of  inspiration  have  differed  ;  — 
was  it  only  an  illumination  of  the  intellect?  or  did  the 
Holy  Spirit  subdue  the  mind  of  prophet  and  apostle  to 
its  thrall,  and  make  them  the  amanuenses  of  its  word? 
These  questions  suggest  divergent  theories  on  which  con- 
tention has  sometimes  been  earnest;  but  under  both  alike 
the  doctrine  of  inerrancy  has  been  maintained.  The  reve- 
lation has,  indeed,  been  allowed  to  have  been  progressive, 
more  primitive  when  the  law  was  given  by  Moses,  more 
fully  unfolded  when  the  prophets  spoke ;  but  in  this  pro- 
gressive feature  we  have  been  shown  a  divine  economy 
which  adapts  the  lesson  to  the  learner.     By  such  consider- 


222  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

ation,  together  with  rules  of  interpretation  which  explain 
the  obscure  by  the  clear,  the  morally  doubtful  by  the 
morally  indubitable,  which  see  in  seeming  discrepancies 
but  surface  denials  of  profounder  harmonies,  is  the  august 
thesis  maintained.  Here,  says  the  apologist,  is  the  oracle 
of  Heaven's  will.  Here  is  wisdom  without  alloy  of  error, 
light  and  no  darkness  at  all,  beauty  and  no  blemish  any- 
where. To  one  who  holds  the  Bible  thus  there  is  no  ques- 
tion of  authority.  Will  he  learn  respecting  God,  his 
nature,  his  will?  of  man,  his  origin  or  destiny?  of  sin,  per- 
dition, redemption?  the  ethics  that  are  unerring,  the  wor- 
ship that  will  be  accepted,  the  faith  that  will  save?  — 
why,  he  will  open  this  book  and  learn. 

These  two  forms  of  authority  we  distinguish  as  outward. 
They  speak  to  man  as  from  the  skies,  whose  depths  his 
unaided  vision  may  not  penetrate.  Listen  to  the  apologist 
of  either,  and  the  supreme  and  only  assurance  is  in  its 
word.  Man  only  guesses  till  it  instructs,  and  is  ever  a 
wanderer  without  its  light. 

The  third  answer  is  that  of  the  philosopher,  who  finds 
the  ultimate  warrant  of  conviction,  not  without,  but  within. 
Grant  truth  offered  from  without,  still,  he  will  argue,  it 
must  be  received  within  ;  and  receiving  implies,  not  pas- 
sive acquiescence,  but  active  embrace.  Merely  granting  a 
teaching  true,  as  the  unlettered  man  may  grant  the  for- 
mula of  the  asymptote,  is  surely  not  a  receiving  to  which 
we  can  attach  a  religious  value ;  but  only  that  in  which 
the  teaching  is  met  with  responsive  embrace.  But  this 
implies  what?  Simply  that  the  mind  shapes  its  judgment 
according  to  criteria  of  its  own.  It  is  not  enough  that  a 
dictum  be  true;  in  order  that  I  may  receive  it,  it  must  be 
true  to  me.  If  dissonant  with  my  intellect  or  conscience, 
however  I  may  assent  to  it  outwardly,  I  inwardly  repudi- 
ate it;  and  it  is  rather  luggage  that  I  carry  than  light  upon 
my   path.     As  respects  truth  in    general,  so   as  respects 


THE   NEW   TESTAMENT   CRITIC  223 

the  distinction  between  truth  in  its  human  proclamation 
and  its  divine.  TelHng  me  tJds  is  divine  truth,  made 
known  through  inspiration,  that  is  mere  human  truth, 
reached  through  investigation,  is  to  Httle  purpose  unless 
there  be  that  within  me  which  marks  the  difference :  some 
deep  sense  that  discerns  the  peculiarities  of  the  divine 
speech  or  the  intonations  of  the  divine  voice.  Such  sense 
our  philosopher  will  claim.  The  soul,  he  will  say,  not 
only  proves  all  oracles  but  discriminates  them  as  of  earth 
or  of  heaven. 

Thus  the  ultimate  warrant  of  religious  belief  he  finds, 
not  without,  but  within.  He  does  not,  indeed,  claim  for 
all  men  the  ability  to  find  this  warrant,  but  that  it  is  within 
the  range  of  human  faculty.  He  finds  it  in  the  "  summit 
minds,"  which,  through  the  unity  of  the  race,  represent  the 
unfolded  possibilities  of  all.  From  the  mountain  crest 
they  report  the  vision  to  those  upon  the  slopes  below. 
Herein  is  the  element  of  just  thought  in  the  claim  of  out- 
ward authority.  Human  society  is  not  an  association  of 
equals;  everywhere  is  the  relation  of  dependence,  those 
of  dimmer  upon  those  of  clearer  vision.  The  parent  must 
be  authority  to  the  child,  the  teacher  to  the  pupil,  the 
statesman  to  those  that  follow  him.  The  fundamental 
truths  of  science,  the  great  principles  of  social  organiza- 
tion, met  and  dealt  with  in  all  the  practical  relations  of 
life,  —  how  many  can  render  an  ultimate  account  of  them? 
Men  may  be  found  who  claim  to  put  by  outward  author- 
ity ;  yet  their  social  ethics,  their  business  rules,  their 
political  maxims,  their  literary  judgments,  their  philo- 
sophical opinions,  closely  examined,  confute  them.  These 
illustrations,  however,  hardly  illustrate  the  authority 
claimed  for  Church  and  Bible.  The  child  gives  up  the 
parent's  guidance  at  last,  and  walks  wisely  in  ways  of  his 
own  selecting ;  the  pupil  outstrips  his  master ;  the  states- 
man may  be  forsaken  for  another  leader ;   the  science  we 


224  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

learn  from  an  Agassiz  we  may  surrender  with  a  Darwin, 
and  the  Social  Physics  of  a  Comte  we  may  give  up  for  the 
Sociology  of  a  Spencer.  In  all  these  cases  the  mind  acts 
freely,  following  by  natural  attraction  what  seems  to  it  the 
clearer  light.  Not  thus,  however,  are  we  permitted  to 
treat  Church  or  Bible,  which,  speaking  from  above  reason, 
demands  its  surrender  rather  than  seeks  its  persuasion. 

The  Catholic  and  Protestant,  while  most  fiercely  con- 
tending with  each  other,  unite  in  common  abhorrence  of 
such  a  philosopher.  He  is  rationalist,  infidel,  mere  theist, 
or  whatever  other  bad  thing,  according  to  the  time  and 
tenor  of  debate,  it  is  most  convenient  to  call  him.  He  is 
apt,  too,  to  intensify  the  dislike  of  both  by  holding  either 
under  the  like  adverse  judgment.  Whether  on  easier 
terms  with  the  followers  of  Luther  or  of  Hildebrand, 
whether  for  practical  use  he  may  prefer  the  Bible  or  the 
Hierarchy,  he  finds  no  better  warrant  in  one  than  in  the 
other  for  the  tremendous  claim  of  infallibility,  and  so  of 
ultimate  outward  authority;  and  in  the  argument  with 
which  he  exposes  the  pretensions  of  either,  the  other  may 
see  the  indictment  of  his  own.  He  has,  not  unlikely,  a  far 
kindlier  feeling  for  either  than  either  cherishes  towards  the 
other;  both  he  may  allow  to  be  depositories  of  divine 
truth  and  to  convey  the  monitions  of  the  Divine  Spirit; 
and  here  again  either  is  displeased  at  seeing  the  other 
allowed  to  be  the  almoner  of  a  grace  of  which  it  claims 
to  be  the  sole  dispenser.  These  attitudes  may  wear  a 
very  human  look,  but  they  are  not  without  deep  reason. 
Neither  could  allow  the  claim  of  the  other  without  the 
destruction  of  itself  To  an  infallible  authority  any  rival 
must  be  a  pretender.  It  discredits  its  own  title  when  it 
admits  the  legitimacy  of  another.  In  another  aspect,  too, 
the  common  objection  to  the  philosopher  may  be  seen  to 
be  well  taken.  On  the  assumption  that  there  is  an  out- 
ward authority  that  is  the  ultimate  support  of  religion,  the 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT   CRITIC  225 

structures  of  Catholic  and  Protestant  dogma  are  reared  ; 
in  this  transfer  of  the  seat  of  authority  from  without  to 
within,  a  new  departure  is  undertaken  than  which  no  other 
could  be  more  revolutionary.  Our  philosopher  may  be 
one  of  ready  sensibility  and  most  generous  appreciation ; 
to  the  noble  work  of  the  Catholic  Church  he  may  bear 
most  willing  testimony;  the  great  lessons  of  Holy  Writ  he 
may  ponder  with  surrendered  heart.  His,  however,  is  just  a 
natural  response  to  a  truth  or  a  divineness  that  has  beamed 
upon  him.  He  embraces  it  for  no  other  reason  than 
because  it  justifies  itself  to  his  interior  nature.  His  theol- 
ogy will  be  no  system  of  dogma  supported  by  Scripture 
texts  or  the  decrees  of  councils,  but  a  body  of  convictions, 
won  it  may  be  through  divine  provocation,  but  with  the 
soul  for  its  central  light. 

Undoubtedly  the  predilection  of  most  men  is  for  an  out- 
ward authority,  a  voice  that  speaks  to  them  a  decisive 
word.  It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that,  accustomed  to  its 
tone,  they  do  not  surrender  it  with  glad  alacrity,  and  that 
they  look  with  a  prevailing  distrust  upon  a  competing 
doctrine  that  implies  a  transition  so  momentous.  An  in- 
ward authority,  that  suggests  to  them  mere  personal 
opinion,  personal  idiosyncrasy,  a  hazy  talk  of  intuitions,  a 
vaporing  of  ideals ;  —  where,  they  ask,  is  the  all-persuad- 
ing and  unifying  truth?  That  a  wide  acceptance  of  an 
inward  authority  would  involve  difficulties  is  very  proba- 
ble, though  it  might  prove  with  respect  to  this,  as  with  so 
many  other  matters,  that  "  the  evils  from  which  we  suffer 
most  are  those  that  never  come."  It  may  be  that  man,  by 
nature  a  religious  being,  would  find  his  way  to  a  proxi- 
mate unanimity  of  thought;  that  his  worship,  while  in 
spirit  more  real,  would  be  no  more  multifarious  than  now. 
In  ethics  there  is  no  prevailing  appeal  to  an  outward 
standard,  yet  the  Moral  Philosophy  of  the  world  is  classi- 
fied on  two  or  three  lines  of  thought.     Men  who  must 

•5 


226  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

have  an  outward  authority  in  religion  are  very  apt  to 
be  intuitionahsts  in  their  ethics,  and  while  looking  to  the 
Bible  for  their  faith,  find  in  conscience  their  criterion  of 
right;  yet  on  a  wide  survey,  with  minor  differences,  noth- 
ing is  clearer  than  their  large  ethical  agreement.  How 
should  it  be  otherwise  with  religion  under  the  like  rule? 
But  while  a  prevailing  recognition  of  an  inward  authority 
would  involve  difficulties,  the  outward  authorities  present 
difficulties  far  more  grave,  because  pertaining,  not  to  their 
working,  but  to  their  inmost  nature.  Are  they  what  they 
are  claimed  to  be?  They  are  fervidly  proclaimed  infal- 
lible ;  —  are  they  so  ?  The  Protestant  is  reasonably  sure  of 
the  absurdity  of  the  Catholic  pretension,  but  is  his  own 
more  secure?  That,  reasoning  a  pj'iori,  we  should  find 
sounder  presumption  in  favor  of  an  infallible  book  than  of 
an  infallible  church,  it  were  hard  to  say ;  while,  dealing 
with  facts  after  the  wont  of  men,  it  is  doubtful  if  a  more 
formidable  bill  of  particulars  can  be  offered  against  the 
Catholic  pretension  than  the  Protestant.  Possibly,  too,  if 
Protestants  were  as  eager  to  see  their  faith  through  Catho- 
lic eyes  as  they  are  to  exhibit  the  Catholic  faith  through 
their  own,  they  might  see  in  one  important  point  the  logical 
superiority  of  the  Catholic  doctrine.  The  Catholic  teach- 
ing that  inspiration  was  not  given  once  for  all,  but  is  ever 
continued  to  the  Church,  is  of  great  practical  significance. 
When  the  Catholic  urges  that,  granted  an  infallible  Scrip- 
ture, we  have  yet  no  infallible  guidance  without  an  infal- 
lible interpretation,  how  can  we  confute  him?  When  he 
further  urges  that  through  the  help  of  the  Holy  Spirit  the 
Church  is  able  to  supply  this,  though  we  may  be  sceptics 
as  to  the  fact,  how  can  we  fail  to  see  that  its  assertion 
gives  a  consistency  to  his  scheme  of  doctrine  which  the 
Protestant  is  not  allowed  to  boast?  Infallible  guidance! 
How  do  the  warring  sects  of  Protestantism  bear  out  the 
Catholic  contention  of  the  impossibility  of  this ! 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT   CRITIC  22/ 

I.  Still,  however,  the  Protestant  doctrine  demands  to  be 
dealt  with  on  its  own  merits.  The  recoil  from  the  Catholic 
claim  of  authority  led  the  reformers  to  their  tremendous 
emphasis  of  a  counter-authority.  An  infallibility  was 
appealed  to,  to  counterpoise  an  infallibility.  Here  was  no 
blending,  as  Dr.  Martineau  would  say,  of  divine  and  un- 
divine  elements,  which,  in  order  to  read  the  Bible  wisely, 
we  must  learn  to  distinguish ;  in  every  feature  it  was 
divine,  and  so  to  be  received  without  discrimination,  as 
Luther  would  have  had  Carlstadt  "swallow  the  Holy 
Ghost,  feathers  and  all."  Its  various  writings  were  but 
varieties  of  a  common  inspiration,  a  Chronicle  as  truly  as 
a  Psalm,  a  Proverb  as  a  Beatitude.  The  consequence  was 
a  critical  study  of  the  Bible  such  as  was  never  devoted  to 
any  other  literature.  It  may  be  easy  to  "  call  spirits  from 
the  vasty  deep,"  but  who  can  forecast  what  they  will  do 
when  we  have  called  them?  The  spirit  of  critical  inquiry 
thus  invoked  was  destined  to  achieve  results  unlooked  for 
and  unwelcome.  The  view  of  the  New  Testament  wuth 
which  the  reformers  began  was  about  that  which  the  un- 
critical reader  receives  from  its  cursory  reading.  Here,  said 
they,  is  a  message  of  one  who  came  from  God,  —  Messiah, 
Logos,  Second  Adam,  —  who  authenticated  his  divine  com- 
mission by  miracles ;  who  dying  rose  again  and  went  back 
to  his  native  heaven.  For  the  record  of  his  wonderful  words 
and  deeds  we  are  indebted  to  two  biographers  who  were  of 
a  group  of  twelve  immediate  disciples,  and  yet  two  other 
biographers  who  were  companions,  one  of  an  immediate 
disciple,  the  other  of  a  great  thirteenth  disciple.  Follow- 
ing these  biographies,  and  written  by  one  of  these  biog- 
raphers, is  an  account  of  the  formation  of  the  early 
Church  under  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  together 
with  its  constitution,  the  conversion,  labors,  travels,  suffer- 
ings, of  the  great  thirteenth ;  next  a  series  of  twenty-one 
letters,  one  written  by  a  brother  of  the  Divine  One,  six  by 


228  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

immediate  disciples,  and  fourteen  by  the  thirteenth  disciple, 
all  conveying  a  varied  exposition  of  the  faith,  and  the 
practice  consistent  with  it.  Such  was  the  picture,  so  easy, 
so  natural.  The  intense  study  of  the  text,  however,  of 
necessity  brought  to  light  what  was  there:  remarkable 
agreements  indeed  of  the  Gospels  one  with  another,  yet 
also  remarkable  differences  between  them,  —  differences 
which  reverent  faith  might  be  willing  to  ignore,  but  whicK 
a  reverent  reason  could  not  possibly  reconcile ;  a  gulf  no 
arch  could  span  between  the  first  three  Gospels  and  the 
fourth,  inconsistencies  in  the  Acts,  anachronisms  in  the 
Epistles.  One  after  another  these  manifold  difficulties 
appeared,  forcing  the  inevitable  questions :  Are  these 
writings  one  and  all  of  apostolic  origin?  Are  Matthew 
and  John,  with  measureless  differences  between  them,  both 
the  work  of  immediate  disciples?  The  claim  is  that  they 
were  written  under  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit;  can 
the  Holy  Spirit  be  held  chargeable  with  manifold  dis- 
crepancies? The  sequel,  were  it  not  known,  might  easily 
be  guessed :  an  exploration,  intense  in  its  eagerness,  of 
whatever  documents  might  yield  a  fact  or  a  suggestion. 
There  was  a  plunge  into  textual  criticism ;  —  granting  the 
original  manuscripts  inspired,  copyists  may  have  committed 
errors,  interpolations  even  may  have  crept  in ;  a  plunge 
into  the  earlier  literature  of  the  Christian  age  to  wring  from 
it  its  testimony ;  the  severest  analyses  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment writings,  and  collation  of  part  with  part ;  the  most 
rigid  comparison  of  language,  the  most  careful  scrutiny  of 
peculiarities  of  literary  style.  Dealing  with  such  con- 
siderations, there  appeared  a  line  of  critics,  Reimarus, 
Lessing,  Paulus,  Bretschneider,  De  Wette,  who  were  com- 
pelled to  repudiate  the  accepted  doctrine,  met  by  an  array 
of  Orthodox  apologists,  eager  to  maintain  the  traditional 
faith,  and  yielding  nothing  that  noble  scholarship  and 
dexterous  reasoning  and  profound  conviction  could  hold. 


THE  NEW   TESTAMENT   CRITIC  229 

At  length  appeared  the  school  of  Tubingen  under  the  lead 
of  Strauss  and  Baur,  which  was  destined  to  fix  the  vogue 
of  nineteenth-century  rationalism,  and  on  which  accord- 
ingly all  Orthodox  batteries  were  to  concentrate  their  fire. 

The  peculiarities  of  this  school  are  too  widely  diffused  to 
need  rehearsal;  enough  for  us  to  know  that  Dr.  Martineau 
early  studied  and  embraced  it.  In  his  writings  his  affilia- 
tion with  this  school  does  not  distinctly  appear,  though 
variously  hinted,  until  his  celebrated  review  of  Renan  ^  in 
1863.  It  was  then,  however,  a  matter  of  not  less  than 
fifteen  years'  standing,  as  a  letter^  to  the  writer  testifies. 
In  this  letter  he  remarks :  "  Baur's  masterly  handling 
of  his  historical  materials  had  impressed  me  so  much 
before  my  year's  visit,  with  my  family,  to  Germany  in 
1848-49,  that  I  had  hesitated  whether  to  take  up  our  abode 
[for  study  and  education]  at  Tubingen  or  in  Berlin."  ^ 
From  this  time  to  the  publication  of  the  Seat  of  Ajithor- 
ity  in  1890,  the  general  features  of  the  Tubingen  criticism 
held  the  allegiance  of  his  mind. 

To  this  volume  we  now  come.  In  dealing  with  the  New 
Testament  writings  the  first  question  is.  Do  they  come 
from  the  sources  they  purport  to  come  from?     Are  they 

1  Essays,  Reviews,  attd  Addresses,  vol.  iii. 

2  Dated  June  12,  1897. 

3  It  may  be  fitting  that  I  should  say  here  that  it  was  his  sympathy  with 
Tubingen  that  rallied  the  opposition  of  his  fellow-sectaries  to  his  appoint- 
ment to  the  college  professorship  of  which  the  story  is  told  on  an  earlier 
page.  On  that  page  the  color  may  have  been  laid  somewhat  too  lightly. 
The  course  of  the  opposition  amounted  almost  to  a  trial  for  heresy  ;  and  to 
his  sensitive  spirit  was  well-nigh  unendurable.  In  case  it  accomplished  its 
end  he  had  serious  thought  of  seeking  a  field  of  labor  in  America  ;  for 
knowledge  of  which  fact  I  am  indebted  to  a  letter  from  Mr.  Martineau  to 
Rev.  William  R.  Alger,  bearing  date  of  April  3,  1S57,  which  Mr.  Alger 
kindly  lets  me  use.  There  was  among  English  Unitarians  at  that  time  a  very 
prevalent  and  quite  violent  "  Germanophobia,"  a  rabies  quite  prevalent  in 
America  also,  and  which  is  now  occasionally  met.  On  the  principle  similia 
similihus curaiitur,  it  can  usually  be  soothed  by  a  treatment  that  provides  a 
little  more  knowledge  of  German. 


230  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

of  apostolic  origin?  The  familiar  headings,  "according 
to  Matthew,"  "  according  to  John,"  carry  no  affirmative 
weight;  ^'  accordi?ig  to"  does  not  necessarily  mean  (^j  /  it 
may  as  easily  mean,  Siich  is  the  tradition  haftded  on  to  us  in 
association  with  the  name  of  Matthew,  or  with  the  fiame  of 
JoJin  ;  to  many  it  might  more  easily  mean  this.  To  the 
Epistles,  indeed,  a  name,  as  of  Paul  or  Peter,  is  attached ; 
but  in  settling  the  question  of  the  authorship  of  an  ancient 
writing  an  associated  name  can  signify  little  against  an 
incongruous  internal  evidence.  Should  there,  for  instance, 
be  brought  to  light  a  brief  biography  of  some  ancient 
worthy,  purporting  to  be  the  work  of  Plutarch,  we  should 
have  not  the  slightest  hesitation  in  repudiating  its  preten- 
sions to  Plutarchan  authorship  if  its  style  was  incongruous 
with  Plutarch's  ;  if  it  gave  support  to  ideas  the  opposite  of 
those  we  know  to  have  been  Plutarch's ;  if  it  contained 
allusions  to  events  that  have  occurred  since  the  time  of 
Plutarch.  Of  course,  in  dealing  with  this  kind  of  evidence 
there  may  be  scope  for  differences  of  opinion :  character- 
istics may  not  be  so  pronounced  as  to  be  at  once  decisive ; 
but  this  order  of  criticism  would  be  of  itself  objected  to  by 
no  mind  competent  to  appreciate  its  value.  Dr.  Marti- 
neau,  applying  it  to  the  New  Testament  Epistles,  arrives  at 
the  conclusion  that  but  six  of  them,  i  Thessalonians, 
Galatians,  Romans,  i  and  2  Corinthians,  and  Philippians, 
are  of  apostolic  origin.  "  The  other  epistolary  writings," 
says  he,  "  which  set  themselves  forth  under  an  apostolic 
name,  remain  unattested  till  the  fourth  generation  from 
the  death  of  Christ,  and  in  nearly  all  of  them  there  are 
such  evident  traces  of  a  post-apostolic  time,  so  many 
thoughts  unsuited  to  the  personality  of  the  reputed  author, 
that  the  ordinary  favourable  presumption  is  broken  down ; 
and,  however  excellent  the  lesson  which  they  contain,  we 
must  confess,  as  we  receive  them,  that  we  listen  to  an 
unknown  voice."  ^ 

1  Seat  of  Authority,  pp.  iSo-iSl. 


THE  NEW   TESTAMENT   CRITIC  23 1 

This  seems  destructive  criticism :  fifteen  of  the  twenty- 
one  Epistles  denied  apostoUc  authorship.  Enough  there 
are,  scholars  with  laurelled  brows,  who  take  a  different 
view  from  this;  comparatively  few  would  coincide  with 
this  judgment  in  its  fulness ;  yet  one  need  not  look  further 
than  the  encyclopaedias  in  familiar  use  to  find  weighty 
reasons  why  the  fifteen  are  severally  rejected,  together 
with  names  of  men  accounted  wise  who  consider  those 
reasons  valid.  The  peculiarity  of  the  attitude  of  Dr. 
Martineau  and  his  school  is  that  they  hold  in  gross  a  nega- 
tive view  which  many  others  hold  distributively.  Few  will 
go  as  far  as  he ;  many  will  meet  him  at  some  points  with 
critical  sympathy;  and  in  none  of  his  judgments  is  he 
without  the  support  of  illustrious  authority. 

We  come  now  to  the  Gospels.  The  interest  here  is,  of 
course,  intense ;  and  a  line  of  reasoning  or  a  literary  dis- 
covery that  should  put  their  authenticity  beyond  dispute 
would  be  greeted  with  a  rapture  that  could  be  evoked  by 
scarce  any  other. 

For  most  obvious  reasons  the  Gospels  are  commonly 
discussed  under  two  divisions,  —  the  first  three,  called  the 
Synoptics,  and  the  Fourth  Gospel. 

I.  Synoptics.  Of  none  of  these  have  we  autograph 
manuscripts,  and  the  names  associated  with  them  are 
merely  traditional.  On  the  line  of  external  criticism,  the 
most  that  the  Orthodox  theologian  can  hope  is  to  find 
definite  traces  of  them  at  a  date  sufficiently  early  to 
make  the  tradition  probable.  Now  the  Apostles  were 
men,  not  boys,  and  at  the  death  of  Jesus  must  have 
been  close  upon,  if  not  beyond,  maturity  ;  and  age 
must  erelons:  dim  their  vision.  To  make  the  Orthodox 
contention  secure,  it  has  been  held  necessary  to  show 
beyond  reasonable  doubt  the  emergence  of  these  Gos- 
pels out  of  the  first  century.  This,  however,  has  not 
been  achieved.      There  is    no  reasoning  that  makes  the 


232  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

hypothesis  more  than  speculatively  tolerable ;  and  there 
are  no  circumstances,  the  tradition  itself  excepted,  not 
explainable  on  the  reverse  supposition. 

Dr.  Martineau  begins  his  discussion  of  the  authenticity 
of  these  Gospels  by  comparing  the  "  vestiges  "  of  their 
use  in  two  periods  of  time.  In  the  last  quarter  of  the 
second  century  references  to  them  are  accompanied  by 
their  names,  which  "  are  absent  from  all  prior  citations  of 
words  now  extant  in  them."  ^  The  significance  of  this 
fact  he  draws  from  a  comparison  of  Irenaeus  and  Justin 
Martyr.  The  former,  writing  probably  between  i8o  and 
193,  quotes  the  Gospels  by  their  names,  and  gives  reasons 
why  there  should  be  four  of  them  and  no  more. 

Here  all  is  plain.  No  one  doubts  that  Irenaeus  knew 
the  four  Gospels  that  we  use.  ■  Turn  back  now  a  genera- 
tion to  the  writings  of  Justin  Martyr.  He  makes  numer- 
ous citations  which  carry  our  minds  to  equivalent  passages 
in  our  Gospels.  But  observe  that  he  never  quotes  them 
by  number  or  by  name,  but  refers  to  "  Memoirs  of  the 
Apostles."  Now,  Orthodox  apologists  fervidly  contend 
that  the  "  Memoirs "  used  by  Justin  were  the  Gospels 
Irenaeus  knew,  a  contention  which  Dr.  Martineau  and  his 
school  find  irreconcilable  with  the  facts :  First,  the  fact 
already  referred  to,  that  Justin  gives  no  hints  of  the 
authors  or  the  numbers  of  the  Gospels,  but  quotes  always 
as  if  from  a  "  single  anonymous  production."  Secondly, 
the  fact  that  while  his  quotations  easily  suggest  equivalent 
passages  in  our  Gospels,  they  are  scarce  ever  identical 
with  them.  Indeed,  while  his  quotations  are  very  many, 
only  five  are  "  exactly  true  to  Matthew  and  Luke."  It  has 
been  frequently  urged  that  Justin  quoted  from  memory, 
and,  sure  that  he  was  right  as  to  the  substance,  was  indif- 
ferent to  verbal  accuracy;  and  support  for  this  view  is 
claimed  from  inaccuracies  in  his  quotations  from  the  Old 

1  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  181. 


THE   NEW  TESTAMENT   CRITIC  2^3 

Testament  as  well.  Dr.  Martincau,  however,  feels  that  this 
will  not  do,  for  the  reason  that  "  the  same  differences 
are  constant  through  repeated  quotations  of  the  same 
passage,"  and  that  "  they  differ,  both  in  frequency  and 
character,  from  concomitant  inaccuracies  "  in  quoting  the 
Old  Testament.^  Thirdly,  and  to  many  probably  ,the 
most  significant  fact  of  all,  Justin  quotes  from  his  "  Me- 
moirs "  matter  which  is  not  in  our  Gospels.  "  Compar- 
ing these  phenomena,"  says  Dr.  Martineau,  "  with  the 
citations  of  Irenaeus,  we  seem  to  be  in  contact,  at  an 
earlier  date,  with  the  unfashioned  materials  of  Christian 
tradition,  ere  yet  they  had  set  into  their  final  form,  .  .  . 
tradition  called  indeed  '  apostolic,'  but  by  the  vagueness 
of  that  very  phrase  betraying  its  impersonal  and  unac- 
credited character."  He  further  remarks  that  "  historical 
memorials  which  are  to  depend  for  their  authority  on  the 
personality  of  their  writer  cannot  afford  to  wait  for  a 
century  ere  his  name  comes  out  of  the  silence."  ^ 

But  does  their  internal  character  ratify  this  judgment? 
Do  they  not  of  themselves  bear  out  the  claim  that  they 
proceed  at  first  and  second  hand  from  eyewitnesses  and 
independent  writers?  To  Dr.  Martineau's  close  scrutiny 
they  yield  precisely  the  opposite  conclusion.  We  all 
know  how  we  should  treat  two  or  more  writings  convey- 
ing the  same  material  in  the  like  or  in  identical  phrase ; 
we  should  say  that,  granting  one  to  be  original,  the  others 
were  taken  from  it;  or  that  all  the  writers  must  have 
received  from  a  common  source.  The  contrary  judg- 
ment, that  all  wrote  independently,  we  should  pronounce 
psychologically  incredible.  Yet  we  meet  precisely  this 
phenomenon  in  the  study  of  these  Gospels ;  "  the  same 
recitals  repeated  in  either  two,  or  all  of  them,  with  such 
resemblance  in  substance,  in  arrangement,  and  even  in 
language,  as  totally  to  exclude  the  possibility  of  original 

1  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  1S3.  2  /^;^.  pp.  183-184. 


234  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

and  separate  authorship."  ^  Dr.  Martineau  makes  a  very 
suggestive  comparison  of  these  Gospels  with  the  Fourth 
Gospel.  The  Fourth  Gospel  all  agree  is  no  compilation: 
it  wears  all  the  characteristics  we  should  look  for  in  the 
creation  of  an  independent  mind.  It  affords  Dr.  Martineau, 
therefore,  a  standard  of  judgment  of  what  we  may  expect 
in  an  independent  account  of  the  ministry  of  Christ. 
Two-thirds  of  its  matter  he  finds  peculiar  to  itself;  while 
the  remaining  third,  though  dealing  with  events  reported 
by  the  synoptists,  "  presents  them  under  aspects  so  new, 
that  the  identity  is  often  difficult  to  trace,  or  is  even  open 
to  doubt."  ^  Dividing  these  Gospels  into  one  hundred 
and  seventy-four  sections,  he  finds  fifty-eight  of  these 
common  to  them  all ;  "  twenty-six,  besides,  to  Matthew 
and  Mark ;  seventeen,  to  Mark  and  Luke ;  thirty-two,  to 
Matthew  and  Luke."  Thus  the  unshared  elements  are 
but  forty-one,  of  which  thirty-one  are  in  Luke,  seven  in 
Matthew,  three  in  Mark. 

This  is  a  telling  consideration  to  one  who  weighs  it  well. 
There  is  another,  however,  which  to  many  may  be  more  sig- 
nificant. The  casual  and  uncritical  reader  of  the  Synoptics 
is  likely  to  be  little  aware  how  small  a  portion  of  the  story 
of  the  life  of  Jesus  is  told.  From  the  Jordan  to  Calvary 
is  a  period  of  about  four  hundred  and  fifty  days.  Of  these, 
the  events  of  not  more  than  thirty-five  are  narrated.  A 
silence  respecting  whole  months  together,  "  now  three,  now 
two,"  breaks  the  continuity  of  the  sacred  story.  A  record 
of  only  thirty-five  days,  or  only  one-thirteenth  of  the  brief 
period,  is  furnished  us  by  the  synoptists.  What  can  be  the 
meaning  of  this  fact?  —  three  records  made  by  independ- 
ent narrators,  yet  twelve-thirteenths  of  the  great  ministry 
passed  over  in  total  silence !  Dr.  Martineau  raises  the 
question  how  this  could  possibly  be.  If  these  Gospels  are 
in   any  sense  the  work  of  attendants  of  Jesus,  how  is  it 

1  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  184,  ^  Ibid.  p.  184. 


THE   NEW   TESTAMENT   CRITIC  235 

that  all  keep  within  the  narrow  circle  of  one-thirteenth  of 
his  ministry?  How  is  it  that  none  afford  us  a  glimpse 
of  any  portion  of  the  labor  or  the  rest  of  the  twelve- 
thirteenths?  Why  this  fulness  of  detail  respecting  thirty- 
five  days  and  this  silence  respecting  four  hundred  and 
fifteen?  The  natural  inference  from  this  fact  is  hard  to 
parry:  we  are  mistaken  in  supposing  these  writings  to  be 
the  record  of  eyewitnesses  of  the  work  of  Jesus.  "  Even 
if,"  says  Dr.  Martineau,  these  writings  "  were  independent 
selections  from  a  mass  of  contemporary  memorials,  pre- 
serving fragments  only  of  the  life  of  Christ,  they  could  not 
all  alight  upon  materials  lying  within  such  narrow  range ; 
for  the  flying  leaves,  scattered  by  the  winds  of  tradition, 
would  be  impartially  dropped  from  the  whole  organism  of 
that  sacred  history,  and,  when  clustered  by  three  disposing 
hands,  could  never  turn  out  to  be  all  from  the  same  branch." 
He  adds  the  reflection  that  the  "  vast  amount  of  blank 
spaces  in  which  they  all  have  to  acquiesce  betrays  a  time 
when  the  sources  of  knowledge  were  irrevocably  gone ; 
and  their  large  agreement  in  what  remains,  that  they  were 
only  knitting  up  into  tissues,  slightly  varied,  the  scanty 
materials  which  came  almost  alike  to  all."  ^  Such  are 
specimen  considerations  of  his  profound  and  eloquent 
argument.  His  conclusion  is  that  these  Gospels  are  "  com- 
posed of  mixed  materials,  aggregating  themselves  through 
three  or  four  generations."  As  such  they  are,  of  course, 
anonymous  writings  ;  and  the  mighty  claim  for  them  as  the 
records  of  eyewitnesses  is  gone.  Are  they,  then,  to  be 
discarded?  Not  so  ;  only  an  untenable  theory  respecting 
them  is  to  be  put  by.  Their  native  value  is  still  very  great, 
after  all  deduction  of  disputable  theory  respecting  them. 
In  their  inmost  kernel  "we  approach,  no  doubt,  the  cen- 
tral characteristics  of  the  teaching  and  the  life  of  Christ. 
But  the  evidence  of  this  is  wholly  internal,  and  has  nothing 

^  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  185. 


236  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

to  authenticate  it  except  our  sense  of  the  inimitable  beauty, 
the  inexhaustible  depth,  the  penetrating  truth,  of  the  hving 
words  they  preserve  and  the  hving  form  they  present.  Of 
our  witnesses  we  know  nothing,  except  that,  in  such  cases, 
what  they  tell  as  reality,  it  was  plainly  beyond  them  to 
construct  as  fiction."  ^ 

2.  TJie  Foiirtli  Gospel.  Great  as  has  been  the  interest 
in  the  "  synoptic  problem,"  the  controversy  over  the  Fourth 
Gospel  has  been  the  more  earnest.  Without  disparaging  its 
companion  Gospels,  there  is  no  denying  the  fact,  the  pre- 
vailing Christian  consciousness  being  our  witness,  that  the 
Fourth  Gospel  has,  through  its  mystic  heights  and  depths, 
a  religious  value  beyond  any  of  them ;  and  multitudes  there 
are  who,  brought  to  the  necessity  of  choice,  would,  like 
Luther,  surrender  the  Synoptics  and  hold  fast  to  John. 
The  more  widely  prevailing  conception  of  the  person  of 
Jesus,  and  one  of  the  leading  doctrines  of  the  Church  are 
drawn  from  its  page.  Besides,  in  its  literary  structure  it 
wears  a  character  to  which  the  New  Testament  critic  at- 
taches great  significance.  While  even  a  cursory  reading 
of  the  Synoptics  bears  in  upon  us  the  impression,  which 
critical  study  makes  welinigh  irresistible,  that  they  are 
largely  a  recast  of  previously  existing  material,  not  so  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  It  is  surely  an  organism,  conceived  and 
brought  forth  by  one  mind.  It  wears  the  indisputable 
features  of  independent  authorship,  a  matter  of  supreme 
moment  with  those  who  would  establish  its  apostolicity. 
From  the  urgency  of  so  many  considerations  it  would  have 
been  surprising  indeed  had  not  the  Orthodox  contention 
for  its  genuineness  been  both  stubborn  and  fervid. 

But  the  logic  of  facts,  however  obscured,  can  never  be 
controverted ;  and  while  it  is  true  that  the  Johannine  issue 
as  shaped  to-day  is  not  precisely  as  Baur  left  it,  it  is  by  no 
means  as  he  found  it ;   and  where  the  Gospels  are  most 

1  Seat  of  Authority,  pp.  1 88- 1 89. 


THE   NEW  TESTAMENT   CRITIC  237 

profoundly  and  dispassionately  studied,  the  general  fea- 
tures of  his  criticism  were  never  more  widely  recognized.^ 
How  stands  the  external  evidence  of  the  genuineness  of 
this  Gospel?  So  far  as  quotations  or  references  can  bear 
testimony,  it  is  only  a  question  whether  it  was  first  used 
somewhat  after  or  somewhat  before  the  middle  of  the  sec- 
ond century.  Dr.  Martineau  examines  a  great  number  of 
citations  of  writers  both  orthodox  and  heretical,  and  adopts 
the  later  date.  The  earliest  citation  which  he  is  willing  to 
recognize  as  from  our  Gospel  he  finds  in  a  fragment  of 
Apollinaris  about  175.  The  earliest  citation  from  the 
Fourth  Gospel  together  with  its  author's  name  he  finds  in 
a  defence  of  Christianity  by  Theophilus,  who  could  have 
written  but  little  before  the  year  180.  The  John  whom 
Theophilus  mentions,  however,  is  not  designated  as  one  of 
the  Twelve;  that  designation  is  not  met  till  we  come  to 
Irenseus ;  ^  and  the  fact  that  he  used  our  Gospel  his  numer- 
ous citations  place  beyond  doubt.  Its  use  in  the  seventh 
decade  of  the  century,  and  from  thence  a  spreading  famil- 
iarity with  it,  is  thus  reasonably  plain.  Stepping  back  from 
this  date,  however,  he  finds  no  satisfactory  indication  of 
acquaintance  with  it,  rather  facts  that  suggest  the  reverse 
conclusion.  He  finds  that  it  was  known  by  the  Valentinians 
(about  180),  but  not  by  Valentinus  (about  160);  known 
by  the  Marcionites  (about  170  to  180),  not  by  Marcion 
(about  150).  Such  are  his  judgments  after  a  critical 
examination  of  all  known  data ;  and  the  fact  that  this 
Gospel  was  not  known  by  these  masters  and  was  known 
by  their  disciples  is  at  least  accordant  with  the  judgment 

1  See  essay  on  "  The  Fourth  Gospel  "  by  Emil  Schiirer,  Contetnporary 
Review,  vol.  Ix. 

2  In  estimating  the  testimony  of  Irenasus,  Dr.  Martineau  is  led  to  a  dis- 
cussion of  the  question  whether  the  John  of  whom  Irenaeus  tells  on  the 
authority  of  Polycarp  is  not  John  the  Presbyter  confounded  with  John  the 
Apostle,  both  of  whom,  according  to  Eusebius,  dwelt  at  Ephesus.  For  this 
discussion,  which  is  extremely  interesting,  I  have  no  space,  and  must  be 
content  with  referring  the  reader  to  the  Seat  of  Authority ,  pp.  192  seq. 


238  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

that  it  came  into  use  between  their  dates.  The  critical 
battle  is  hottest,  however,  over  Justin  Martyr.  Dr.  Marti- 
neau,  examining  his  citations,  comes  to  the  conclusion 
that  this  Gospel  was  probably  not  known  by  him.  He 
quotes  one  passage  that  has  been  much  debated :  "  For 
Christ  said,  unless  ye  be  born  again,  ye  will  not  enter  into 
the  kingdom  of  heaven.  But  that  it  is  impossible  for  those 
who  have  once  been  born  to  enter  into  the  wombs  of  those 
who  bare  them,  is  plain  to  all."  Of  course  this  carries  us 
to  the  earlier  verses  of  the  third  chapter  of  John,  which 
Dr.  Martineau  translates,  "  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto 
him.  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  thee,  unless  a  man  be  born 
from  above  [a  rendering  to  which  the  Revised  Version 
gives  a  marginal  support],  he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of 
God."  The  points  of  Justin's  departure  from  the  Gospel 
are  plain.  But  may  they  not  be  accounted  for  by  the 
supposition  that  he  indulges  in  memoriter  quotation,  in 
which,  faithful  to  the  sense,  he  is  careless  of  the  letter? 
So  many  have  thought,  and  Justin's  Old  Testament  quota- 
tions make  it  plain  that  verbal  accuracy  was  not  a  consid- 
eration that  weighed  heavily  upon  him.  But  it  happens 
that  in  the  Clementine  Recognitions  Dr.  Martineau  finds 
the  same  passages  quoted  with  these  identical  variations ; 
and  he  concludes  that  "  this  concurrence  of  two  independ- 
ent writers  in  a  set  of  variations  on  the  same  text  must  be 
due  to  some  common  cause ;  "  and  he  asks,  "  What  else  can 
it  be  than  the  use  by  both  of  them  of  a  source  deviating 
from  the  fourth  Gospel  in  these  points?"  He  finds  it 
impossible  to  doubt  "  that  that  source  embodied  an  earlier 
tradition,  on  which  the  Johannine  version  afterwards  re- 
fined." ^  This  hypothesis  doubtless  harmonizes  the  con- 
ditions, and  under  the  spell  of  Dr.  Martineau's  eloquent 
reasoning  many  may  feel  that  Orthodox  oppugnance  to  it 
must  spring  solely  from  interest  in  a  rival  one.     Such  may 

1  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  202. 


THE   NEW   TESTAMENT   CRITIC  239 

well  fortify  their  candor  by  remembering  that  the  reverse 
view,  that  Justin  used  our  Gospel,  is  held,  not  to  mention 
a  host  of  others,  by  Ezra  Abbott,  by  Schiirer,  and  by  Kcim. 
The  judgment  of  the  last  two  is  especially  significant,  since, 
while  they  allow  that  Justin  used  the  Gospel,  they  deny 
that  an  Apostle  wrote  it. 

The  conclusion  of  Dr.  Martineau,  based  on  notices  of 
the  early  use  of  the  Gospel,  therefore,  is  that  it  could  not 
have  originated  earlier  than  the  fifth  decade  of  the  second 
century.  This  judgment  implies  an  allowance  of  a  rea- 
sonable time  for  its  distribution  "  from  the  place  of  its 
nativity  to  the  literary  centres  of  the  church  and  of  the 
Gnostic  sects."  ^ 

But  turn  now  to  the  Gospel  itself; — does  its  internal 
character  ratify  this  judgment  of  its  late  origin?  Have  we 
not  a  reasonable  guarantee  of  an  eyewitness  in  the  veri- 
similitude of  its  narratives?  So  Schleiermacher  held,  and 
so  multitudes  of  the  good  and  wise  still  hold.  This  con- 
sideration is  undoubtedly  very  persuasive,  but  it  is  only  to 
be  surrendered  to  in  the  absence  of  irreconcilable  facts. 
We  can  easily  see  how  an  American  Defoe,  placing  him- 
self by  the  side  of  Bunyan,  might*  so  delineate  his  career 
that  the  first  impression  even  of  careful  readers  would  be 
that  the  work  was  the  record  of  an  eyewitness  and  com- 
panion. But  did  a  more  careful  scrutiny  detect  words  that 
have  come  into  our  language  within  the  last  century;  did 
we  find  in  it  an  allusion,  however  covert,  to  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence,  or  the  Transcendental  Philosophy,  — 
we  should  say  that  while  verisimilitude  is  to  be  praised  as 
ait,  it  is  quite  possible  that  it  may  be  a  source  of  illusion. 

An  early  tradition,  that  later  times  have  not  been  will- 
ing to  part  with,  referred  the  Fourth  Gospel  and  the 
Apocalypse  to  the  same  author,  —  the  Apostle  John.  If, 
however,    the   latter-day   view,    which    Harnack   received 

1  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  208. 


240  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

from  a  pupil  and  published  with  his  own  great  support,^ 
shall  prevail,  this  is  no  longer  a  relevant  consideration. 
This  view  regards  the  Apocalypse  as  a  Christian  recen- 
sion of  an  originally  Jewish  document;  and  Dr.  Marti- 
neau's  analysis  of  it  reveals  elements  which  may  be  as 
early  as  A.  D.  66,  and  other  elements  that  cannot  be  of 
earlier  date  than  A.  D.  136.^  This  view  Orthodox  con- 
servatism can  hardly  like ;  but  that  it  relieves  the  Fourth 
Gospel  of  an  incubus  rather  than  takes  from  it  a  support 
may  be  fairly  argued.  For  those  who  have  been  zealous 
to  maintain  the  tradition  have  had  to  deal  with  the  embar- 
rassing question,  how  two  writings  in  all  respects  so  dis- 
similar could  have  been  the  product  of  the  same  mind. 
The  contention  has  usually  been  that  the  Apocalypse  was 
the  earlier  writing,  and  that  the  Apostle  after  its  com- 
position, through  a  mellowing  of  sentiment  and  growing 
familiarity  with  the  Greek  language  and  contact  with 
Greek  culture,  achieved  his  preparation  to  write  the 
Fourth  Gospel.  The  reasonings,  however,  by  which  this 
thesis  is  supported  are  likely  to  bear  in  upon  the  mind 
the  feeling  that  they  are  all  but  indefensible ;  while  the 
search  for  analogies  only  succeeds  in  making  their  ex- 
istence scarce  credible.  Leaving  behind  all  other  con- 
siderations, take  account  of  the  contrast  of  language  and 
literary  form.  The  Greek  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  of  the 
best  in  the  New  Testament;  that  of  the  Apocalypse  is 
simply  barbarous ;  while,  as  respects  the  peculiarities  of 
style  by  which  the  workings  of  a  mind  are  shown,  com- 
parison of  the  two  reveals  only  contrast.  As  to  the  date 
of  the  Apocalypse,  the  most  orthodox  criticism  has  rarely 
placed  it  earlier  than  about  the  middle  of  the  seventh 
decade    of   the    first   century,    a   time   when    the    son   of 

1  For  Harnack's  account  of  this  interesting  incident,  see  Seat  of  Author' 
ity,  p.  225. 

2  Ibid.  p.  227. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT   CRITIC  24 1 

Zebedee  must  have  been  well  past  the  more  vigorous 
period  of  life,  and  have  entered  into  the  stage  when 
habits  of  mind  are  not  easily  modified.  The  supposition 
that  between  this  date  and  that  stadium  in  life  to  which 
tradition  assigns  the  production  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  he 
could  have  achieved  the  marvellous  change  which  the 
later  writing  must  imply,  a  change  obliterating  all  trace 
of  the  mind  that  brought  forth  the  earlier  one,  is  little 
short  of  psychologically  incredible.  The  conviction  of 
Dr.  Martineau,  as  that  of  many  another  profound  scholar, 
is  that  "  never  will  the  same  mind  and  hand  produce  two 
such  books,  till  *  all  things  are  possible  to  men '  as  well  as 
'  to  God.'  "  ' 

Undoubtedly  the  apostolic  origin  of  this  Gospel  is  more 
easily  defended  when  it  stands  alone  than  when  it  is  asso- 
ciated with  the  earlier  writing.  But  now,  another  con- 
sideration. Grant  that  the  literary  features  of  the  Gospel 
make  the  supposition  that  it  could  have  been  written  by 
the  author  of  the  Revelation  incredible,  will  they  allow  us 
to  think  of  it  as  the  work  of  a  Palestinian  Jew?  and  we 
may  make  the  consideration  more  significant  by  remem- 
bering that  the  son  of  Zebedee  was  not  by  vocation  a 
scholar  but  a  fisherman,  "  unlearned  and  ignorant,"  when 
he  accepted  his  call  to  be  an  apostle.  Again  the  literary 
aspects  of  the  Gospel  come  before  us.  It  is  not  to  be 
pretended  that  the  Greek  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  up  to 
the  standard  of  the  classic  age ;  yet  it  is  good  Greek, 
fluent,  graceful,  as  of  one  long  familiar  with  its  use.  Only 
the  exigencies  of  a  theory  could  ever  lead  to  the  thought 
of  it  as  the  late  acquisition  of  one  whose  birthright  was  an- 
other tongue.  So  strongly  has  this  consideration  weighed 
with  some,  as  Ewald  and  Bunsen,  that,  while  believing 
the  Apostle  to  have  been  substantially  the  author  of  the 

1  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  218.  This  point  is  very  fully  discussed  by 
J.  J.  Tayler  in  his  book  on  the  Fourth  Gospel. 

16 


242  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

Gospel,  they  have  conceived  that  he  must  have  employed 
literary  help  from  the  more  learned  around  him.  The 
tradition  that  John  wrote  the  Revelation,  which  is  Hebrew 
turned  into  Greek,  has,  from  its  literary  features,  provoked 
no  challenge,  the  composition  being  such  as  would  naturally 
be  expected  of  him.  Were  the  Gospel  represented  as  com- 
ing to  us,  not  merely  from  some  centre  of  Greek  culture,  but 
from  one  well  known  to  represent  that  culture,  no  surprise 
would  be  excited ;  the  composition  would  be  held  worthy 
such  a  source.  As  the  case  stands,  while  we  are  hardly  com- 
petent to  say  that  the  Gospel  could  not  have  been  writ- 
ten by  such  a  Jew,  we  are  in  a  position  to  require  that 
whatever  collateral  testimony  there  may  be  shall  favor 
this  assumption.  Unfortunately  for  it,  however,  the  testi- 
mony favors  the  reverse  assumption.  When  Dr.  Marti- 
neau  says,  "No  companion  of  Jesus  could  have  placed  the 
scene  of  the  Baptist's  testimony  to  Jesus  in  '  Bethany 
beyond  Jordan,'^ — a  place  unknown  to  geography;  or  have 
invested  Annas  as  well  as  Caiaphas  with  the  preroga- 
tives of  high  priest ;  or  have  represented  that  office  as  an- 
nual ;  or  have  so  forgotten  Elijah  and  Nahum  as  to  make  the 
Pharisees  assert  that  '  out  of  Galilee  ariseth  no  prophet,'  "^ 
possibly  he  states  the  case  rather  strongly.  Grant,  how- 
ever, these  errors  in  geography  and  history  possible  to  one 
born  and  reared  and  long  active  in  Palestine,  it  is  surely 
more  easy  to  think  them  of  a  stranger  to  its  scene  and  life. 
Barely  credible  in  a  "  companion  of  Jesus,"  they  were  quite 
credible  in  a  companion,  say,  of  Clement  of  Alexandria. 
But  another  consideration  buttresses  the  foregoing.  The 
attitude  of  the  writer,  as  shown  alike  in  the  letter  and  the 
spirit  of  his  teaching,  is  that  of  a  foreigner,  not  a  com- 
patriot or  friend.     The  manner  of  speaking  of  "  the  Jews," 

1  The  King  James  Translation  reads  "Bethabara;"  but  the  Greek  is 
"  Bethany." 

2  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  212. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT   CRITIC  243 

"  the  Jews'  passover,"  "  the  passover,  a  feast  of  the  Jews," 
shows  the  disdainful  appraiser  of  a  Hfe  in  which  he  could 
never  have  participated.  As  far  as  we  are  able  to  trace 
the  Apostle  John,  he  represents  a  Judaic  Christianity;  he 
is  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Church  of  Jerusalem,  and 
views  with  no  friendly  mind  the  apostolate  of  Paul,  and 
his  freer  Gospel ;  yet  the  writer  of  the  Fourth  Gospel 
gives  no  hint  that  he  is  of  the  Jewish  race,  that  he  ever 
thrilled  with  a  Judaic  sympathy,  that  the  "  feasts  of  the 
Jews "  were  the  feasts  of  his  fathers,  and  within  recent 
memory  his  own.  Dr.  Martineau  very  forcibly  remarks: 
"  No  Israelite,  sharing  the  memory  of  the  \ao<;  ^eoO,  could, 
like  the  evangelist,  place  himself  superciliously  outside 
his  compatriots,  .  .  .  and  reckon  the  Jews  among  the 
common  eOvrj  of  the  world."  He  brings  this  spirit  the 
more  distinctly  to  view  by  placing  it  in  contrast  with  that 
of  Paul,  —  Paul  in  all  the  years  of  his  apostolate  pursued 
by  the  unrelenting  malice  of  his  countrymen;  yet  neither 
his  "  heart  nor  faith  was  ever  so  alienated  from  the  tradi- 
tions and  inheritance  of  his  people  as  we  find  the  spirit 
of  the  fourth  Gospel  to  be."  On  the  contrary,  "  so  far 
as  he  was  an  exile  from  them,  he  grieved  at  the  separa- 
tion; he  looked  back  on  them  with  regretful  affection, 
and  forward  to  reunion  with  yearning  hope.  The  univer- 
sal religion  which  he  had  gained  was  not  opposed  to 
theirs,  but  its  proper  consummation,  if  they  would  only 
take  it  all."  He  adds  :  "  That,  while  the  Gentile  mission- 
ary speaks  of  his  brethren  in  this  tender  voice,  one  of  the 
elder  apostles  should  set  his  face  as  flint  against  them, 
and  treat  their  place  in  the  world  as  the  stronghold  of  all 
that  is  earthly  and  undivine,  is  hard  to  conceive ;  and  the 
contrast  suggests  rather  the  suspicion  that  we  are  trans- 
ported into  the  age  of  Marcion  and  the  anti-Jewish 
Gnostics,  whose  Christianity  was  not  a  development  but  a 
defiance  of  the  Israelite  religion."^ 

1  Seat  of  Aiithority,  pp.  212-213. 


244  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

The  argument,  however,  that  is  weighty  beyond  all  others 
against  the  Johannine  origin  of  this  Gospel  is  drawn  from 
a  comparison  of  it  with  the  Synoptics.  Doubtless  the 
far  prevailing  conviction  is,  that  the  Synoptics,  whether 
written  by  their  reputed  authors  or  no,  transmit  to  us  the 
Palestinian  tradition.  But  this  being  the  case,  such  are 
the  differences  between  them,  it  seems  clearly  impossible 
to  maintain  the  like  for  the  Fourth  Gospel.  The  thesis  wont 
to  be  put  forth  by  reconcilers  is,  that  the  Fourth  Gospel 
was  written  after  the  Synoptics  and  with  intent  to  fill  out 
their  narrative.  Where  outside  the  brain  of  the  apologist 
the  suggestion  of  this  is  found,  in  what  aspect  of  the  nar- 
rative itself,  it  were  difficult  to  say.  We  should  say  that 
the  most  obvious  characteristics  of  this  Gospel  make  this 
thesis  utterly  untenable.  An  actor  in  this  world's  affairs, 
surveying  the  records  of  others,  may  write  to  complete 
their  incompleteness,  to  correct  details  that  have  been 
misreported,  or  to  draw  from  events  another  meaning. 
But  "  in  executing  this  purpose,"  says  Dr.  Martineau,  "  he 
will  necessarily  work  upon  their  main  program,  and  find 
room  within  its  outline  for  filling  in  the  forgotten  details, 
and  retouching  the  faded  or  mistaken  colours.  The  story 
will  act  itself  out  on  the  same  field  and  in  the  same  period  : 
only  it  will  be  enriched  by  new  episodes,  and  gain  some 
varieties  of  light."  But  when  we  come  to  the  Fourth 
Gospel  we  find  nothing  of  this.  Its  writer,  "  totally 
disregarding  the  organic  scheme  of  his  predecessors,  con- 
structs the  history  afresh ;  so  that  the  sparse  points  of 
contact  .  .  .  are  but  tantalizing  concurrences,  that  supply 
no  links  of  consecution,  and  leave  the  new  story  com- 
pletely outside  the  old."  ^ 

The  more  salient  features  of  this  comparison  need  not 
here  be  presented  in  fulness  of  detail,  so  wide  is  the  famil- 
iarity with  them.     Did  we  not  know  that  what  men  see 
1  Seat  of  Authority,  pp.  215-216. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  CRITIC  245 

depends  very  often  upon  the  point  from  which  they  look, 
the  fact  that  men  can  face  the  contrast  between  the 
Synoptics  and  John,  and  bcHeve  both  to  be  authentic  his- 
tories of  Jesus,  would  seem  strange  enough.  We  know 
that  the  same  events  may  convey  very  different  impres- 
sions, that  the  same  truth  may  be  offered  in  most  diverse 
aspects,  and  that  outside  the  Providence  of  God  we  no- 
where meet  such  bewilderments  as  in  the  phenomena  of  a 
great  life.  These  facts  may  well  teach  us  caution  in  our 
judgments  upon  the  Gospel  records,  than  in  dealing  with 
which  the  apparent  is  never  less  likely  to  be  the  measure 
of  the  true.  But  however  such  considerations  may  save 
us  from  the  hasty  and  superficial  judgment,  they  only 
blind  or  warp  us  if  they  prevent  us  from  drawing  from 
facts  their  natural  inference ;  and  that  they  are  likely  to  do 
this,  especially  when  they  buttress  a  theory  we  would  hke 
to  see  prevailing,  experience  only  makes  too  evident.  To 
apply  this  reflection  to  the  noble  rank  of  scholars  who 
to-day  maintain  the  Johannine  authorship  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  may  seem  scarce  respectful.  The  liability,  how- 
ever, to  construe  facts  by  predilections,  to  see,  that  is, 
according  to  the  point  from  which  we  look,  is  one  from 
which  intellectual  acquirements  however  great  are  not 
a  sure  protection,  or  Bacon  and  Agassiz  would  have 
another  record. 

In  dealing  with  the  Johannine  problem  let  us  change  the 
point  of  view,  and  note  what  might  then  be  —  reasoning 
on  a  basis  of  probability  —  the  Orthodox  attitude  towards 
it.  Let  us  suppose  the  Christian  Church  built  upon  the 
Synoptic  records  alone,  the  Fourth  Gospel,  though  writ- 
ten, lost  to  sight,  buried  in  some  ancient  library,  and  now, 
in  the  closing  years  of  the  nineteenth  century,  like  the 
Gospel  of  Peter,  first  brought  to  view.  We  can  imagine 
the  acclaim  with  which  it  would  be  put  forth :  Here  is 
another  Gospel,  written  by  John,  the  disciple  whom  Jesus 


246  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

loved ;  the  original  —  it  must  be  that,  whence  Justin 
Martyr  drew  those  strange  quotations,  the  fourth  of  Ire- 
naeus,  who  held  that  there  should  be  four,  neither  more  nor 
fewer;  it  is  surely  the  document  of  which  we  find  so  many 
traces  in  the  Christian  literature  of  the  latter  part  of  the 
second  century,  and  which  we  have  so  long  wanted  to  see ; 
which  the  Marcionites  and  the  Valentinians  knew,  which 
ApoUinaris  cited  and  Theophilus  refers  to  by  its  name.  It 
is  nobly  written,  it  is  rich  in  the  profoundest  spiritual  in- 
sights. More  important  than  anything  else,  its  portrait 
presents  other  features  of  the  great  Person,  its  narrative 
other  details  of  the  great  story.  Let  the  canon  long  closed 
be  opened  to  receive  it,  that  Christian  faith  and  worship 
may  be  instructed  from  the  record  of  our  Lord  in  its 
completeness. 

The  interest  of  Christendom  would  be  at  once  aroused, 
and  the  Gospel  would  speedily  be  translated  into  all  Chris- 
tian tongues.  Its  literary  completeness  would  be  at  once 
apparent;  its  mystic  heights  and  depths  would  be  dis- 
cerned ;  the  sage  would  ponder  it  with  delight  and  the 
saint  with  ecstasy ;  but  the  proposition  to  open  the  canon 
to  give  this  new-found  Gospel  place  beside  the  long  famil- 
iar Three  would  certainly  be  a  grave  one,  and,  unless 
summarily  and  widely  repudiated,  would  prompt  to  the 
most  animated  discussion.  The  great  divines  of  the 
Church,  Protestant  and  Catholic,  swayed  by  reverence  for 
the  canon,  and  with  as  yet  only  a  literary  interest  in  this 
candidate  for  a  place  in  it,  would  weigh  with  jealous  mind 
all  arguments  favorable  to  its  reception,  and  meet  with 
forward  interest  every  opposing  consideration.  The  line 
of  study,  it  is  needless  to  say,  would  be  that  of  comparison 
of  this  Gospel  with  those  already  recognized ;  and  this 
could  not  fail  to  bring  into  view  the  vast  differences 
between  them.  The  intrinsic  value  of  this  document  is 
indeed  very  great,  some  Lightfoot  would  argue,  but  not 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  CRITIC  247 

on  that  ground  alone  can  we  allow  it  canonicity.  Allow- 
ing that  the  three  Gospels  so  long  in  use  are  still  to  be  of 
the  canon,  it  is  clear  that  any  fourth  that  shall  stand  beside 
them  must  in  its  more  general  features  be  in  accord  with 
them.  Now  here  is  an  invincible  difficulty  in  the  way  of 
admitting  this  Fourth  Gospel  to  the  companionship  of  the 
Three,  —  the  difference  between  them;  difference  in  aim, 
in  the  central  Personality,  in  style  of  teaching,  in  detail  of 
events; — the  biography  of  the  latter  cannot  possibly  be 
cast  in  the  mould  of  the  former.  The  aim  of  the  Three  is 
simply  narrative.  While  the  critical  may  detect  in  the 
several  writings  the  individuality  of  the  writer,  find  Mat- 
thew, for  instance,  the  more  national  in  his  interests,  Luke 
the  more  universal,  and  Mark  the  least  doctrinal,  there  is 
no  mistaking  the  fact  that  their  purpose  is  to  set  down  in 
due  order  the  details  of  Christ's  ministry.  The  ruling  fea- 
ture of  this  Gospel  on  the  other  hand  is  argument;  its 
distribution  of  material  is  to  illustrate  a  thesis,  not  to 
exhibit  a  career.  It  is  a  philosophical  disquisition,  and 
though  the  writer  treats  of  the  Christ,  it  is  from  the  feet  of 
Plato.  The  great  Personality  —  how  different  in  the  two? 
In  the  Three  he  is  the  Messiah  of  Jewish  hope ;  there  is 
the  most  studious  care,  especially  in  ]\Iatthew,  to  show  in 
him  the  fulfilment  of  Old  Testament  prophecy.  He  comes 
through  the  gate  of  mortal  birth ;  and  whatever  may  be 
said  of  the  discrepancies  in  the  genealogies  of  Matthew 
and  Luke,  it  is  perfectly  plain  that  they  aim  to  connect 
him  with  the  hne  of  David.  In  this  Gospel  there  is  noth- 
insf  of  this  at  all.  He  is  the  Logos  come  out  of  heaven 
and  become  incarnate.  Of  ancient  Scripture  there  is 
scarce  the  suggestion  that  he  is  the  fulfilment ;  of  the  line 
of  David  it  conveys  no  hint;  of  birth,  of  childhood,  that 
he  grew  in  years  or  in  wisdom,  there  is  nothing  in  the 
record  to  indicate.  Li  short,  with  only  this  record  before 
us  we  should   conceive  him   without  yesterdays,  without 


248  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

to-morrows,  as  befits  the  Eternal  Word.  And,  consonant 
with  this  contrast,  there  is  a  difference  in  their  early  his- 
tory. The  Messiah  comes  to  John  for  baptism,  for  thus 
it  became  him  to  fulfil  all  righteousness ;  but  the  Word, 
so  far  as  the  record  shows,  was  not  baptized.  The  Mes- 
siah is  tempted  of  the  devil ;  the  Word  should  experience 
no  temptation,  and  this  Gospel  shows  none.  The  conven- 
tional usages  of  earth  and  the  seductions  of  Satan,  —  what 
have  they  to  do  with  this  Radiance  of  God?  The  style 
of  teaching  is  wholly  different.  In  the  Three  the  far 
prevailing  method  is  the  parable,  —  without  a  parable 
spake  he  not  unto  them.  In  this  writing  this  style  is 
wholly  wanting.  In  its  stead  we  find  long  discourses 
which  it  cannot  be  supposed  were  reported  from  the 
Teacher's  lips,  and  which  it  is  scarce  possible  to  believe 
that  memory  could  have  treasured.  A  comparison  of  the 
miraculous  in  either  brings  us  face  to  face  with  another 
contrast.  In  the  Three  the  miracles  most  frequently  met 
are  cures  of  demoniacs ;  —  from  the  prevalence  and  the 
vividness  of  the  belief  in  demons  in  the  Palestine  of  this 
period,  this  is  but  natural.  In  this  John,  however,  there 
is  not  a  single  example  of  this  miracle.  How  is  it  that 
it  should  make  such  impression  upon  Matthew  and  none 
upon  a  fellow-disciple?  The  last  miracle  of  this  Gospel 
is  the  stupendous  miracle  at  the  grave  of  Lazarus ;  yet 
this  is  known  to  the  writer  of  this  Gospel  only.  How 
could  such  an  event  fail  to  impress  all  who  witnessed  it 
and  all  who  heard  of  it?  Was  it  known  to  the  writers  of 
the  Three?  —  how  could  they  then  have  preserved  silence 
respecting  it?  But  the  difficulty  deepens.  This  miracle, 
as  this  Gospel  tells  us,  was  the  impulse  to  the  plotting 
against  Jesus  that  led  to  his  arrest  and  crucifixion ;  and  it 
is  past  comprehension  how  the  writers  of  the  Three  could 
severally  tell  the  story  of  the  crucifixion  and  know  noth- 
ing of  its  immediate  cause,  or,  knowing,  suppress    it   in 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  CRITIC  249 

their  narrative.^  In  the  distribution  of  events,  too,  we 
meet  an  irreconcilable  difference.  According  to  Matthew 
and  Luke,  the  expulsion  of  the  traffickers  from  the  temple 
was  at  the  close  of  the  Teacher's  ministry ;  according  to 
this  Gospel  it  was  at  the  beginning.  The  scene  of  the 
ministry  as  offered  by  the  two  is  unmistakably  different. 
According  to  the  Three  the  Teacher  devotes  his  labors 
almost  wholly  to  Galilee,  going  up  to  Jerusalem  near 
their  close  to  bear  his  testimony  and  receive  his  martyr- 
dom. According  to  this  Gospel  he  labors  chiefly  at 
Jerusalem,  making  only  excursions  into  Galilee.  As 
respects  the  period  over  which  the  ministry  extended,  we 
meet  also  a  difference  that  it  is  impossible  to  harmonize. 
Turn  over  the  narratives  of  the  Three  as  you  will,  you  can 
make  out  from  them  a  ministry  of  but  little  more  than  a 
year.  This  writing  extends  it  to  nearly  three  years. 
Finally,  a  difference,  in  statement  brief  but  in  significance 
overpowering,  in  the  date  of  the  last  supper  of  Jesus  and 
his  disciples.  According  to  the  Three  this  supper  was 
the  Jewish  passover;  according  to  this  writing  it  could 
not  have  been  the  passover  at  all.  The  date  of  the 
passover  was  definitely  fixed;  it  was  always  the  14th 
of  the  month  Nisan,  and  any  Jewish  child  could  have 
given  it.  According  to  the  Three  the  meal  was  taken 
on  the  evening  of  that  day,  and  Jesus  was  crucified  on 
the  day  following.  But  according  to  this  writing  the 
meal  must  have  been  taken  on  the  evening  of  the  13th 
Nisan,  for  Jesus  died  on  the  passover  day.  Here  is 
irreconcilable  contradiction  where  mistake  on  the  part  of 
a  disciple  had  been  scarcely  possible.  These  differences, 
none  of  them  unimportant,  taken  together  are  of  great 
significance ;  and  they  make  the  proposal  to  receive  this 
writing  into  the  canon  utterly  untenable.  If  the  Three 
possess  the  elements  requisite  to  canonicity,  among  which 

1  See  K.t\m,  Jesus  of  Nazara,  vol.  i.  pp.  179-180. 


250  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

must  surely  be  a  faithful  record  of  our  Lord's  ministry, 
this  writing,  then,  cannot  do  so ;  and  to  give  it  a  place 
with  them  is  to  imperil  all,  through  its  dissonance  with 
them.  On  the  canon  as  it  is,  the  Church  is  securely 
builded ;  in  thrusting  under  it  this  writing  we  must  im- 
peril its  foundations.  By  all  of  the  sense  of  sacredness  in 
which  we  hold  the  Three,  and  by  all  of  conservative  in- 
stinct we  must  resist  this  proposal.  Is  this  a  fancied  issue? 
None  the  less  it  illustrates  our  thesis,  that  what  men  see 
often  depends,  not  alone  on  the  facts  they  contemplate, 
but  also  upon  the  direction  in  which  they  look.  That 
under  these  circumstances  such  would  be  the  Orthodox 
attitude  towards  the  Johannine  problem  there  cannot  be  a 
doubt.  Orthodoxy,  in  this  issue,  would  be  anti-Johannine. 
They  would  be  heretics  who  would  receive  the  Gospel 
into  the  canon.  We  return  to  Dr.  Martineau  to  say  that 
the  facts  which  under  such  circumstances  would  array 
Orthodoxy  against  this  Gospel  are  a  portion  of  the  facts 
on  which  he  bases  his  argument  against  its  apostolic 
origin.  In  view  of  them  he  holds  it  impossible  to  main- 
tain that  the  Synoptics  and  the  Fourth  Gospel  both  come 
out  of  the  apostolic  circle. 

But  are  there  any  internal  features  of  this  Gospel  that 
especially  accord  with  the  external  evidence  of  its  late 
origin?  To  Dr.  Martineau  the  fact  is  all  but  indisputable. 
As  respects  the  origin  of  the  Logos  doctrine,  which  the 
Proem  states  and  the  subsequent  narrative  is  arranged  to 
illustrate,  there  has  been  on  the  one  side  a  more  than  will- 
ingness to  find  it  the  utterance  of  a  Jewish  thought,  on  the 
other  a  conviction  unshadowed  by  a  doubt  that  its  root  is 
in  the  Alexandrian  type  of  Neo-Platonism.  With  the 
champions  of  the  latter  view  is  Dr.  Martineau.  With  a 
brief  statement  of  the  doctrine,  first,  as  presented  by  Philo, 
and,  secondly,  of  the  incarnation  of  the  Logos  in  Jesus 
Christ  as  taught  by  Christian  philosophers,  he  goes  on  to 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT   CRITIC  25  I 

say :  "  In  this  form  it  did  not  come  upon  the  stage  until  the 
middle  of  the  second  century;  when  Christianity,  released 
from  its  first  enemy  by  the  destruction  of  the  Jewish  State, 
turned  round  to  face  and  to  persuade  its  Pagan  despisers, 
and  searched  the  philosophic  armoury  for  weapons  of 
effective  defence;  and  most  of  all  when  converts  from 
heathenism,  as  Justin  Martyr  and  Athenagoras,  addressed 
themselves  on  behalf  of  their  adopted  faith  to  those  whom 
they  had  left  behind.  From  the  apostolic  age  this  concep- 
tion was  entirely  absent :  not  a  trace  of  it  is  to  be  found  in 
the  Pauline  letters,  which  work  their  way  to  similar  issues 
by  other  tracks  of  thought;  and  not  till  we  listen  to  the 
Apologists  in  the  time  of  the  Antonines  does  this  new  lan- 
guage fall  upon  the  ear.  It  was  borrowed  from  the  Greek 
yvcoai^,  so  fruitful  of  speculative  systems  in  that  age  of 
peace  and  letters,  and  was  compelled  to  take  up  into  its 
meaning  the  Christian  facts  and  beliefs.  The  fourth  Gos- 
pel breathes  the  very  air  of  that  time  :  it  weds  together  the 
ideal  abstractions  of  the  Gnostic  philosophy,  and  the  per- 
sonal history  of  Jesus  Christ;  and  could  never  have  been 
written  till  both  of  them  had  appeared  upon  the  scene.  It 
is,  indeed,  itself  a  Gnosticism,  only  baptized  and  regen- 
erate ;  no  longer  lingering  aloft  with  the  divine  emanation 
in  a  fanciful  sphere  of  aeons  and  syzygies,  but  descending 
with  it  into  a  human  life  transcendent  with  holy  light,  and 
going  home  into  immortality."  ^ 

By  another  pathway  of  thought  he  comes  to  the  like 
conclusion.  Religious  opinions,  as  we  view  them  in  his- 
tory, wear  often  a  transitory  look,  but  viewed  on  the  scale 
of  a  human  life  the  most  evanescent  of  them  have  a  consid- 
erable endurance.  The  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Nature 
of  Christ  passed  through  various  stages,  yet  it  was  more 
than  three  centuries  before  it  reached  a  final  statement. 
Three  of  these  stages  Dr.  Martineau  finds  within  the  Gos- 
pel narrative. 

1  Sea^  of  Authority,  p.  237. 


252  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

The  frequent  designation  of  Jesus  in  the  Gospels  is  Son 
of  God.  When  did  he  become  such?  Grant  him  in  any 
sense  an  earthly  nature,  such  as  it  was  supposed  that  the 
Messiah  would  be,  when  did  the  higher  nature  take  up  its 
abode  in  him?  This  question,  "never  contemplated,  in- 
deed, by  those  who  first  used  it  [the  designation]  in  its 
stereotyped  Jewish  sense,"  was  "  sure  to  be  started  as  soon 
as  it  came  with  the  surprise  of  freshness  upon  hearers  who 
had  to  construe  it  for  themselves."  ^  The  earliest  answer 
Dr.  Martineau  finds  to  have  been,  at  the  baptism.  In  illus- 
tration of  this  view  he  goes  behind  the  Synoptists,  to  the 
Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews,  which  he  holds  to  embody 
an  earlier  tradition.  Here  at  the  baptism  of  Jesus  the 
voice  from  heaven  speaks  in  the  language  of  the  Psalmist, 
"Thou  art  my  Son ;  this  day  have  I  begotten  thee."  At 
the  consummation  of  the  rite  the  Spirit  descends  upon 
him,  and  he  who  before  was  but  the  son  of  David  becomes 
the  Son  of  God.  Dr.  Martineau  also  calls  attention  to  the 
fact  that  this  view  was  long  held  by  the  Ebionites,  who 
through  the  second  and  third  centuries  stood  fast  by  the 
faith  of  the  first ;  and  he  holds  what  most  readers  will  un- 
doubtedly confess,  that  the  first  chapter  of  Mark,  with  whom 
"  the  beginning  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of 
God,"  is  with  the  baptism,  conveys  the  like  impression ; 
and  he  feels  that  nothing  can  be  plainer  than  that  "  the 
genealogies  which  give  the  pedigree  of  Joseph,  and  are  in- 
tended through  him  to  link  Jesus  with  the  house  of  David, 
must  have  been  drawn  up  under  the  influence  of  this  belief 
as  to  the  conditions  that  were  to  meet  in  Messiah,  —  an 
earthly  lineage  and  a  heavenly  investiture."^ 

Here  is  a  distinct  type  of  doctrine,  the  sway  of  which 
we  have  warrant  for  believing  was  considerable. 

But  sooner  or  later  the  question  must  arise,  was  sure  to 
arise  as  the  new  faith  pushed  out  into  wider  fields,  How 

1  .5"^^/  of  Authority,  p.  238.  ^  jbid.  p.  239. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  CRITIC  253 

can  sonship  be  conferred?  Filiation  is  not  a  gift;  it  holds 
by  an  immediate  title.  If  it  is  not,  it  cannot  be.  Probably 
through  the  working  of  some  such  thought  as  this,  the 
union  of  the  divine  nature  with  the  Messiah's  human  na- 
ture was  next  conceived  to  have  been  at  his  birth.  Hence 
appeared  the  stories  of  miraculous  conception  of  which 
those  in  Matthew  and  Luke  are  probably  the  earlier. 
This  is  the  second  type  of  doctrine,  and  now  the  third: 
Birth  brings  upon  the  theatre  of  this  world  a  nature  that 
was  not  here  before,  but  "  can  the  divine  be  born?  "  Grant 
that  at  Messiah's  birth  a  divine  nature  mingled  with  liis 
human  nature,  was  it  generated  then?  Did  it  not  come 
down  from  heaven,  where  it  had  a  pre-existent  life?  Pre- 
existent !  was  it  ever  non-existent?  Can  we  think  of  it 
otherwise  than  as  expressing  the  life  of  God  in  the  mystery 
of  eternal  generation?  "  It  was  inevitable,  that,  under  the 
influence  of  this  mode  of  thought,  the  sonship  to  God 
should  yet  retreat  back  another  step  beyond  all  temporal 
limits,  and  become  pre-existent  to  the  whole  humanity  of 
Jesus ;  so  that  nothing  in  him  should  be  new  to  this  world, 
except  the  corporeal  frame  and  mortal  conditions  v/hich 
were  needful  to  his  relations  with  men."  ^  This  is  the 
doctrine  of  the  Fourth  Gospel. 

Here  are  three  types  of  doctrine,  each  opening  into  the 
wider  ranges  of  speculation,  and  capable  of  an  interest 
that  is  profound  and  a  hold  that  is  strong.  Their  several 
periods  of  ascendant  interest  it  is  impossible  now  to  show ; 
but  that  the  first  two  ran  their  course  and  the  third  reached 
its  blossom  within  the  first  century  is  to  Dr.  Martineau  an 
incredible  supposition.  Yet  if  the  Orthodox  view  be  the 
true  one,  this  course  was  run  and  this  blossom  attained 
within  the  active  period  of  one  man. 

We  need  not  follow  this  line  of  study  further.  For  these 
insurmountable  reasons,  Dr.  Martineau  cannot  allow  the 

^  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  241. 


254  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

Gospels,  in  the  structure  in  which  we  know  them,  to  be  the 
product  of  the  apostoHc  age.  Neither  in  the  Synoptics 
nor  in  John  do  we  find  a  disciple's  record  of  the  great 
ministry.  The  records  that  we  read  come  to  us  from  a 
later  age,  in  the  light  of  whose  beliefs  and  hopes  and 
sufferings  and  struggles  they  must  be  interpreted,  and  he 
thus  interprets  them.  Of  the  greatest  intrinsic  value, 
they  are  thus  none  the  less  discredited  as  to  the  primary 
contention  respecting  them ;  and  the  claim  for  them  as  an 
ultimate  outward  authority  is  no  longer  tenable. 

II.  This  wears  to  some  a  destructive  look,  but  what  is 
destroyed  .-'  Dr.  Martineau  deals  a  heavy  blow  at  accepted 
theories,  and  shocks  a  reverence  that  subsists  upon  them. 
It  is  but  fair,  however,  to  remember  that  his  too  is  a 
reverent  spirit,  and  only  just  to  beheve  that  it  is  in  the 
spirit  of  reverence  that  his  blows  are  given. 

Let  the  critic  suspend  his  function  and  the  philosopher 
speak  for  a  moment.  You  believe  in  inspiration,  you  say; 
you  are  assured  that  God  could  not  have  been  so  in- 
different to  the  spirits  he  has  created  as  to  leave  them  to 
grope  in  the  dark,  vouchsafing  them  no  beam  of  his  great 
light;  and  that  through  these  New  Testament  records  a 
beam  of  that  light  has  been  borne  to  them.  It  may  sur- 
prise some  earnest  soul  to  be  told  that  the  above  state- 
ments only  fail  to  convey  Dr.  Martineau's  mind  as  they 
fail  in  fulness.  He  too  believes  in  inspiration,  and  that 
through  these  records  a  beam  of  the  divine  light  has  been 
imparted.  But  he  also  believes  that  it  is  through  another 
beam  cast  on  your  own  soul  that  you  distinguish  it ;  that 
it  is  only  through  the  divine  in  you  that  the  divine  is 
apprehended  by  you.  But  here  is  a  point  on  which  you 
and  he  radically  differ:  you  will  have  this  record  divine 
not  only  in  its  spirit,  its  prompting,  its  awakening  light 
and  its  vitalizing  power,  but  in  its  letter  too ;  its  cast  of 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT   CRITIC  255 

thought,  its  detail  of  narrative,  its  moral  reflections,  its 
historical  allusions.  Paul's  metaphor  of  the  treasure  in 
earthen  vessels  you  cannot,  in  dealing  with  this  problem 
allow  to  give  you  guidance;  you  "want  not  the  treasure 
only,  but  the  casket  too,  to  come  from  above,  and  be  of 
the  crystal  of  the  sky."  To  Dr.  Martineau,  not  only  does 
the  record  fail  to  satisfy  this  want,  but  the  want  is  intrin- 
sically impossible  of  satisfaction.  For  "whatever  higher 
inspiration  visits  our  world  must  use  our  nature  as  its 
organ,  must  take  the  mould  of  our  receptive  capacity,  and 
mingle  with  the  existing  life  of  thought  and  affection. 
How  then  can  it  both  assume  their  form  and  escape  their 
limitations?  how  flow  into  the  currents  of  our  minds  with- 
out being  diluted  there?  how  dissolve  itself  in  them  with- 
out any  taint  from  their  impurity  ?  You  cannot  receive  the 
light  on  a  refracting  surface,  and  yet  expect  it  to  pursue 
its  way  still  straight  and  colourless.  And  the  soul  of  a 
man,  especially  of  one  fit  to  be  among  the  prophets  of  the 
world,  is  not  like  a  crystal,  a  dead  medium  of  transmission, 
which  once  for  all  deflects  what  it  receives,  and  has  done 
with  it ;  but  a  living  agent,  whose  faculties  seize  on  every 
influence  that  falls  upon  them,  with  action  intenser  as  the 
appeal  is  more  awakening."  ^ 

Thus,  then,  we  are  brought  to  this :  In  the  achieve- 
ment of  the  higher  work  of  the  world  God  and  man  co- 
operate. In  the  complete  result,  however  fair,  divine  and 
human  elements  are  commingled.  Grant  with  God  the 
initiative,  with  man  is  the  elaboration.  It  follows  that  the 
discrimination  of  the  two,  to  him  who  will  think  justly,  is 
a  matter  of  paramount  interest.  But  how  may  this  be? 
Not  without  effort  on  our  part ;  to  be  "  carried  blindfold 
into  the  Eternal  Light "  is  not  allowed  us.  But  where  are 
the  tests  by  which  we  may  mark  the  distinction?  The 
answer  is,  Not  without,  but  within,  "  in  the  methods  of 

^  Seat  of  Author ity,  p.  289. 


256  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

just  thought,  the  instincts  of  pure  conscience,  and  the  as- 
pirations of  unclouded  reason.  These  are  the  Hving  pow- 
ers which  constitute  our  affinity  with  God,  and  render 
what  to  Him  is  eternally  true  and  good,  true  and  good 
to  us  as  well ;  and  their  selecting  touch  alone  can  part 
asunder  the  entangled  crowd  of  acts  and  things,  and  from 
their  conflicting  meanings  single  out  for  us  the  idea  which 
is  His,  and  the  spirit  which  He  loves."  ^ 

Thus  your  claim  for  the  New  Testament  record,  which 
the  critic  finds  such  various  and  such  weighty  reason  to 
set  aside,  the  philosopher  finds  incongruous  with  just 
thought.  It  implies  that  you  have  received  from  God 
what  it  were  impossible  for  God  to  give.  Here,  then,  you 
say,  is  the  end  of  Revealed  Religion.  Better  so,  in  calm 
sincerity  be  it  said,  than  that  your  claim  should  be  valid. 
Men  with  nature  and  human  experience  before  them,  and 
their  own  unaided  reason  within,  have  found  their  way  to 
the  soul's  Alpine  summits  where  the  air  was  free  and  a 
glory  thrilled  them ;  and  when  you  sigh  over  the  hardness 
of  their  lot,  the  reply  may  be.  Better  their  lot  than  yours, 
with  a  revelation  that  enables  you  to  dispense  with  the 
laborious  discrimination  of  true  from  false,  and  right  from 
wrong ;  and  so  far  as  the  New  Testament  has  been  held  to 
do  this,  it  has  only  blessed  mankind  in  spite  of  it.  As  the 
non-use  of  any  faculty  or  power  means  its  enfeeblement 
and  decay  at  last,  the  revelation  that  should  supersede  the 
hard  exercise  of  reason  and  conscience  in  the  determina- 
tion of  ultimate  truth  were  not  God's  blessing,  but  his 
curse;  and  while  in  this  stricture  upon  the  doctrine  we 
go  beyond  its  widely  prevalent  application,  we  do  not  go 
beyond  legitimate  inference.  But  is  it  so  certain  that 
Revealed  Religion  has  no  longer  any  tenure  if  the  preva- 
lent view  of  inspiration  be  untenable?  One  thing  is  cer- 
tain, that  Dr.  Martineau  thinks  otherwise ;   no  Orthodox 

1  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  297. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT   CRITIC  257 

divine  stands  more  insistently  for  Revealed  Religion  than 
he.  He  is  drawn  much  to  the  study  of  Natural  Religion, 
but  to  Revealed  Religion  he  gives  the  prior  place;  for 
without  it,  as  he  holds,  Natural  Religion  were  without 
a  guiding  light.  His  comparison  of  the  two  is  full  of 
suggestion:  "Natural  Religion  is  a  human  elaboration 
which  sets  more  or  fewer  steps  between  ourselves  and 
God.  It  is  a  method  of  mediate  knowledge,  carrying  us, 
by  successive  stages  of  advance,  out  of  the  finite  into  the 
infinite :  there  are  media  without,  as  we  pass  the  facts  of 
the  world  in  review  before  us,  and  move  from  the  narrower 
through  the  wider  order  to  the  cause  which  embraces  all : 
there  are  media  within,  as  our  own  reason  weaves  up 
feeling  and  perception  into  its  premisses,  and  so  marshals 
its  premisses  as  to  conquer  its  conclusion."  But  what 
then?  Clearly  this:  So  far  as  "God  naturalises  himself 
in  order  to  be  discerned,  constructs  a  cosmos  to  be  the 
mirror  of  his  thought,  covers  it  with  greater  and  lesser 
circles  of  intersecting  laws,  executed  by  a  delegated  physi- 
ology from  within,  he  is  not  presented,  but  represented^  ^ 
Here,  if  you  please,  is  his  manifestation,  but  not  himself;  a 
witness  of  his  wisdom  and  his  power,  but  not  his  person- 
ality; and  through  the  study  of  this  is  Natural  Religion 
won.  ,  Revealed  Religion,  on  the  other  hand,  finds  its 
possibility,  not  as  God  is  "represented,"  but  as  he  is  "pre- 
sented.'' Its  knowledge  is  not  jnediate,  but  immediate, 
Spirit  present  with  spirit,  living  God  with  living  soul. 
And  this  is  possible,  not  as  man  ascends  into  the  Divine 
Presence,  but  as  God  comes  with  revealing  light  into  the 
human.  "  Where,"  he  tells  us,  "  the  Agent  is  Divine,  and 
the  recipient  human,  there  can  be  nothing  for  the  mind  to 
do  but  let  the  light  flow  in,  and  by  the  lustre  of  its  pres- 
ence turn  each  common  thought  to  sanctity :  the  disclo- 
sure must  be  self-disclosure ;  the   evidence,  self-evidence ; 

1  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  304. 
17 


258  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

the  apprehension,  as  we  say,  intuitive ;  something  given, 
and  not  found."  ^  This,  as  is  more  than  once  brought  out 
in  the  preceding  pages,  is  Dr.  Martineau's  initial  truth. 
Religion  begins  with  it,  and  in  its  light  runs  its  career. 
While  the  common  phrase  gives  us  Natural  and  Revealed 
Religion,  Dr.  Martineau,  true  to  the  order  of  his  concep- 
tions, would  reverse  the  terms,  and  tell  of  Revealed  Reli- 
gion and  Natural.  Until  the  soul  has  apprehension  of  a 
God,  the  eye  cannot  discern  his  tokens. 

Thus  is  Dr.  Martineau  a  prophet  of  Revealed  Religion, 
though  it  must  be  confessed  that  his  utterances  have  not 
the  familiar  sound  of  those  who  have  been  held  the  special 
custodians  of  this.  But  let  us  see  through  his  inferences 
the  more  special  features  of  his  thought,  (i)  The  condi- 
tions of  revelation  being  two,  God  and  a  human  soul,  it 
follows  that  between  them  can  be  no  mediator.  Immediate 
divine  knowledge  can  never  be  at  second  hand.  As  many, 
therefore,  as  "  know  him  at  first  hand,  so  many  revealing 
acts  have  there  been ;  and  as  many  as  know  him  only  at 
second  hand  are  strangers  to  revelation."  They  may  hold 
what  has  been  given  to  another,  but,  "  in  passing  through 
media  to  them,"  it  has  lost  its  character  as  Revealed,  and 
has  become  Natural  Religion.  "  Take  away  the  fresh 
Divine  initiative,  and  the  immediate  apprehension  which 
it  gives  cannot  pass  laterally  from  man  to  man :  no  one,  in 
the  absence  of  God's  living  touch,  can  put  us  into  com- 
munion with  him,  and  make  him  known  to  us  as  his  own 
spirit  would.  Nothing  spiritual,  nothing  Divine,  can  be 
done  by  deputy ;  and  the  prophets  are  no  vicars  of  God, 
to  stand  in  His  stead  among  alien  souls,  and  kindle  in  them 
a  flame  unfed  by  the  Light  of  lights."  ^  But  (2)  is  there, 
then,  no  part  which  the  prophet  may  bear  in  revelation? 
Grant  that  he  alone  is  immediately  enkindled,  can  he  in 
no  sense  communicate  the  sacred  fire?     Yes,  in  a  most 

1  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  305.  ^  study  of  Rdigion,  pp.  307-308. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT   CRITIC  259 

important  sense  he  may  do  this.  For  the  order  of  depend- 
ence of  feebler  upon  mightier  natures  here  finds  illustra- 
tion. Under  the  rule  of  Providence  the  higher  is  ever  for 
the  lower,  and  the  prophet  of  God  for  the  service  of  all. 
There  is  no  mistaking  the  fact  that  when  the  prophet 
speaks  a  sense  of  the  divine  may  be  experienced  where  it 
was  scarce  known  before.  It  is,  however,  only  awakened 
where  before  it  slumbered.  The  impulse  "  gives  no  new 
reality :  it  only  interprets  what  is  already  there ;  flinging  a 
warm  breath  on  the  inward  oracles  hid  in  invisible  ink,  it 
renders  them  articulate  and  dazzling  as  the  hand-writing  on 
the  wall.  There  is  no  change  in  the  object  within  sight; 
only  the  film  is  wiped  away  that  concealed  or  confused 
what  was  close  at  hand.  The  divine  Seer  does  not  convey 
over  to  you  his  revelation,  but  qualifies  you  to  receive 
your  own."  Dr.  Martineau  goes  on  to  tell  us  that  this 
"  mutual  relation  is  possible  only  through  the  common 
presence  of  God  in  the  conscience  of  mankind ;  "  that  the 
fact  "  that  the  sacred  fire  can  pass  from  soul  to  soul  is  the 
continuous  witness  that  He  lives  in  all ;  "  and  that  "  were 
not  our  humanity  itself  an  Emmanuel,  there  could  be  no 
Christ  to  bear  the  name."  "  Take,"  says  he,  "  this  Divine 
ground  away,  .  .  .  and  no  inspiration  given  to  one  can 
avail  to  animate  another.  He  may  indeed  tell  others  what 
has  been  revealed  to  him,  and  they  may  take  it  on  his 
word,  and  pass  the  report  on ;  but  this  is  not  repeating 
his  experience :  it  is  believing  testimony,  not  seeing 
God."  ' 

But  the  substance  of  revelation  —  what  is  that  ?  Is  it  the 
history  of  the  cosmos,  the  origin  of  man,  the  Israelites 
in  the  wilderness,  the  conquests  of  Joshua,  the  Levitical 
priesthood,  the  exploits  of  Samson,  the  deeds  of  Saul? 
Does  it  forecast  the  future ;  tell  of  a  kingdom  that  shall 
pass    away,    of  a   deliverer  that   shall    come?      Does    it 

1  Seat  of  Authority,  pp.  308-309. 


260  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

announce  the  end  of  the  world,  a  final  judgment,  an 
ultimate  salvation  and  reprobation?  Do  we  read  it  literally 
in  the  texts  of  Judges  and  Isaiah  and  Ezekiel,  in  the 
genealogies  of  Matthew  and  Luke,  in  the  colloquy  of 
Mary  and  Elizabeth,  in  the  rhapsody  of  Zacharias,  in  the 
arguments  of  Paul,  in  the  visions  of  the  Apocalypse? 
Such  has  been  the  teaching;  but  such  is  not  the  teaching 
of  Dr.  Martineau.  "  In  virtue  of  its  immediate  or  intuitive 
character,"  says  he,  "  Revelation  must  always  open  our 
eyes  to  what  really  is  or  ought  to  be,  not  to  what  has  hap- 
pened, is  happening,  or  will  happen.''  He  illustrates  by 
reference  to  space  and  time,  the  contents  of  which  are 
won  through  the  senses,  the  memory,  the  understanding, 
while  space  and  time  themselves  are  intuitively  given. 
He  adds:  "The  immediate  self-disclosure  of  God  to  the 
human  spirit,  similarly  carries  in  it  the  consciousness  of  a 
present  Infinite  and  Eternal,  behind  and  above  as  well  as 
within  all  the  changes  of  the  finite  world.  It  brings  us 
into  contact  with  a  Will  beyond  the  visible  order  of  the 
universe,  of  a  Law  other  than  the  experienced  consecution 
of  phenomena,  of  a  Spirit  transcending  all  spirits,  yet  com- 
muning with  them  in  pleadings  silently  understood.  But 
it  recites  no  history ;  it  utters  no  Sibylline  oracles ;  it 
paints  no  ultramundane  scenes ;  it  heralds  neither  woes 
nor  triumphs  of  '  the  latter  days.'  "  He  concludes  with  a 
judgment  which  to  some  may  seem  severe,  but  from  which 
the  consistency  of  his  mind  forbids  him  to  flinch  :  "  So 
foreign  are  such  apocalyptic  things  from  the  essence  of 
'  revelation,'  that  they  exemplify  the  lowest  aberrations  of 
'  natural  religion.'  "  ^ 

"The  Bible,  then,  is  no  revelation,  is  it?"  asks  some 
offended  spirit.  "  These  rhythmic  sentences,  seeming  so 
logical  and  fair,  bring  us  to  the  abyss  of  infidelity  at  last." 
Undoubtedly  the  difference  between  your  judgment  of  the 

1  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  311. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  CRITIC  26 1 

Bible  and  his  is  very  great,  though  your  language  hardly 
speaks  true  to  him.  He  tells  as  fervidly  as  you  of  divine 
quickenings  that  thrilled  the  hearts  of  Hebrew  seers,  and 
through  them  awoke  their  people  to  a  vivid  consciousness 
of  God  ;  of  one  who  out  of  communion  with  heaven  spoke 
in  tones  that,  reverberating  across  the  abyss  of  eighteen 
centuries,  are  still  the  world's  chief  melody.  You  find  its 
inspiration  in  the  meaning  of  its  texts,  he  in  the  fire  of  the 
prophet's  soul.  Hence  follows  the  difference  between  you 
and  him,  as  he  would  state  it.  While  with  him  revelation 
implies  the  soul  and  God  in  the  simplest  and  most  normal 
relations,  with  you  it  is  "  apocalyptic  "  in  its  gift.  No  con- 
trast could  be  clearer  than  this,  or  in  the  broad  survey  of 
religion  more  frequently  presented.  To  great  multitudes 
the  apocalyptic  concomitant  seems  indispensable.  A  rev- 
elation from  God, — surely  some  portent  must  attend  it. 
It  cannot  be  the  burden  of  a  common  soul,  —  some  super- 
natural messenger  must  bring  it.  How  shall  we  distin- 
guish it,  if  its  communication  be  attended  by  no  marvel? 
To  Dr.  Martineau  —  and  always  there  are  those  like  him 
—  the  apocalyptic  does  not  signify,  or,  so  far  as  it  does, 
offends  rather  than  assures.  While  you  must  have  in 
some  sense  the  wind  and  the  earthquake  and  the  light- 
ning, he  is  well  content  with  the  still  small  voice.  His 
feeling,  indeed,  is  stronger  than  this :  he  places  "  Apoca- 
lyptic Religion  "  and  "  Revealed"  in  contrast  as  mutually 
exclusive  types  :  if  revealed  then  not  apocalyptic,  if  apoca- 
lyptic not  revealed.  For  the  soul  only  can  receive  reve- 
lation, and  nothing  apocalyptic  can  appeal  to  it.  The 
apocalyptic  can  only  be  addressed  to  the  senses  or  the  im- 
agination ;  and,  while  it  may  overwhelm  as  a  wonder,  it  can- 
not penetrate  as  a  light.  Its  place,  if  it  have  any,  is  within 
the  embrace,  not  of  Revealed,  but  of  Natural  Religion. 
But  again  the  question.  How  in  the  absence  of  apocalyptic 
accessories  can  a  revelation  be  known  to  be  such?     Dr. 


262  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

Martineau's  answer  is  that  the  Divine  Word  authenticates 
itself,  and  needs  no  apocalyptic  witness  to  its  origin. 

This  rich  field  we  need  not  explore  further.  Dr.  Marti- 
neau's attitude  is  plain,  likewise  his  wide  departure  from 
prevailing  standards.  These  Scriptures  he  would  explore 
under  the  guidance  of  natural  reason,  while  prevailingly 
they  are  read  in  apocalyptic  light.  He  rejoices  to  receive 
the  heavenly  treasure  they  convey,  and  to  that  very  end  is 
eager  to  discriminate  the  terrestrial  vessel  that  contains  it. 
Prevailingly  they  are  seen  through  a  haze  of  marvel  in 
which  treasure  and  vessel  are  indiscriminately  blended.  It 
is  enough  for  him  to  receive  the  spiritual  illumination  that 
they  bring,  and,  from  the  inspiration  they  impart,  to  be 
assured  of  inspiration  at  their  source.  Prevailingly  their 
inspiration  is  an  a  priori  assumption,  which,  reasoned 
however  it  may  be,  the  text  according  to  its  letter  cannot 
satisfy.  To  him,  inspiration  is  illumination  of  the  spirit 
through  immediate  contact  with  God.  Prevailingly  it 
is  miraculous  dictation.  As  of  the  Christian  records, 
so  of  their  central  figure.  To  him,  he  is  a  human  friend 
and  brother,  who,  living  in  the  consciousness  of  God, 
became  the  oracle  of  his  grace.  Prevailingly  he  wears 
an  apocalyptic  halo,  his  beauty  not  a  blossom  of  earth, 
but  a  marvel  from  the  skies.  In  his  treatment  of  the  New 
Testament  presentation  of  this  person  we  now  follow  him. 

III.  The  New  Testament  offers  us  three  conceptions  of 
Christ,  —  the  simply  Jewish,  the  Pauline,  and  the  Johan- 
nine.  They  are  of  the  Messiah,  the  Second  Adam,  and 
the  Incarnate  Logos.  To  all  of  these  Dr.  Martineau  de- 
votes a  copious  and  fruitful  page.  The  earlier,  however, 
is  the  root  of  the  other  two,  and  a  conclusion  respecting  it 
is  by  implication  a  conclusion  as  respects  them.  We  shall, 
therefore,  follow  him  only  through  his  discussion  of  the 
Messianic  claim. 


THE  NEW   TESTAMENT   CRITIC  263 

Though  Jesus  Christ  may  be  the  same  yesterday,  to-day, 
and  forever,  his  features  have  differed  from  age  to  age 
according  to  the  eyes  that  have  contemplated  them.  To 
the  Jews  vv^ith  whom  his  ministry  began  it  was  inevitable 
that  he  should  be  looked  upon  in  the  light  of  the  Messianic 
expectation.  Grant  that  "  Messiah  was  but  the  figure  of 
an  Israelitish  dream,"  yet  was  he  the  master  light  of  Israel's 
seeing,  the  comfort  of  his  griefs,  the  fulfilment  of  his  un- 
extinguishable  hope.  A  great  one  should  come  of  the 
line  of  David,  who  should  regenerate  his  people  and  rule 
the  world.  Measured  by  this  expectation,  Jesus  was  re- 
pudiated by  the  great  mass  of  his  countrymen ;  to  them 
he  did  not  fill  out  this  august  figure.  By  his  few  immediate 
followers,  however,  he  was  believed  to  be  Messiah;  and 
on  their  proclamation  of  this  belief  the  Christian  Church 
began  its  career.  So  much  is  certain ;  but  now  a  ques- 
tion :  What  was  the  attitude  of  the  mind  of  Jesus  towards 
this  hope  ?  That,  a  growing  boy,  he  received  it  from  his 
parents,  is  most  probable;  that,  entering  upon  manhood, 
it  was  a  haunting  assurance,  we  need  not  doubt ;  and  that, 
when  he  began  to  preach,  "  The  time  is  fulfilled,  and  the 
kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand,"  his  language  reflected  this 
great  expectation,  is  reasonably  certain.  But  thrilling  to 
the  vision  of  Messiah's  kingdom,  did  he  conceive  himself 
the  Messiah  ?  This,  too,  is  the  all  but  universal  conviction, 
both  of  believers  who  \vould  magnify  him  and  of  doubters 
who  would  discredit  him.  It  is  preached  throughout 
Christendom ;  a  recent  author,  treating  of  Christ's  knowl- 
edge of  the  Old  Testament,  pleasantly  tells  how  his  interest 
in  its  pages  was  enhanced  by  seeing  in  them  glowing  fore- 
casts of  himself.  Beyond  a  doubt,  too,  his  Messianic  claim 
is  on  the  surface  of  the  Synoptic  narratives.  Dr.  Mar- 
tineau,  however,  treats  it  as  made,  not  by  Jesus  for  himself, 
but  as  foisted  upon  him  by  his  followers ;  and  devotes  his 
learning  and  acumen  to  relieving  Jesus  from  what  he  con- 


264  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

ceives  an  unwarranted  and  so  derogatory  pretension.  Dr. 
Martineau  is  not  alone  in  this  view ;  but  his  arguments  are 
sufficiently  novel  to  give  them  more  than  ordinary  atten- 
tion ;  and  not  a  few  even  of  those  most  friendly  to  his  gen- 
eral scheme  of  thought  have  hesitated  to  embrace  them.^ 

Admittedly  a  Synoptic  teaching,  why  doubt  the  record  ? 
To  evangelical  faith  this,  of  course,  is  impossible.  To  one, 
however,  to  whom  the  laws  of  criticism  apply  to  the  New 
Testament,  as  to  all  other  writings,  a  doubt  may  be  sup- 
ported by  considerations  that  are  not  slight.  The  charac- 
ter of  the  books  yields  a  tentative  suggestion  of  great 
weight.  They  are  not  in  their  ruling  purpose  narrative, 
but  argument.  Their  aim  is,  not  to  furnish  a  biography 
of  Jesus,  but  to  set  forth  this  very  thesis  respecting  him. 
Look,  for  instance,  at  the  first  of  the  three  in  the  order  of 
the  canon.  " It  is,"  says  Dr.  Martineau,  "compiled  through- 
out in  a  dogmatic  interest.  .  .  .  The  position  which  it  aims 
to  establish,  viz.,  that  the  life  it  relates  is  that  of  the  future 
Messiah,  is  present  everywhere :  it  supplies  the  principle 
of  selection  with  which  the  writer  passes  through  the  tradi- 
tions and  records  ready  to  his  hand  :  he  drops  as  irrelevant 
whatever  does  not  help  his  thesis :  he  weaves  together  ex- 
clusively the  incidents  and  sayings  which  admit  of  being 
turned  to  its  support.  ...  If  here  and  there,  in  the  inter- 
vals of  the  compiler's  logical  vigilance,  words  that  transcend 
his  theory  or  incidents  that  contradict  it  lie  embedded  in 
his  story,  the  truth  is  betrayed  by  the  only  signs  of  which 
the  case  admits ;  and  such  rare  instances,  like  the  solitary 
organic  form  detected  in  rocks  that  never  showed  such 
traces  before,  may  tell  a  story  of  the  past  significant  out 
of  all  proportion  to  their  size.  It  is  only  by  reasoning 
from  such  internal  marks,  that  we  can  ever  hope  to  recover 
the  simple  outline  of  the  truth."  ^ 

^  .See  especially  essay  by  J.  Estlin   Carpenter,  Unitarian  Review,  vol 
xxxvi. 

2  Seat  of  Authority,  ^'^.  330-331. 


THE   NEW  TESTAMENT   CRITIC  265 

This  is  unsparing  criticism ;  and  many,  embracing  it  as 
a  just  account  of  these  writings,  would  summarily  reject 
them  as  without  historic  value.  Not  so  Dr.  Martineau. 
Criticism  to  him  is  not  merely  a  surgeon's  lance,  but  a  rod 
of  divination  also ;  and  he  applies  it  to  these  writings  to 
see  what  positive  conclusion  it  will  draw  from  them. 
Grant  that  the  attitude  and  manifest  purpose  of  the  com- 
pilers should  make  us  wary  of  their  conclusion,  does  a 
scrutiny  of  their  materials  yield  any  facts  that  justify  a 
different  conclusion  ?  While  beyond  a  doubt  these  writ- 
ings reflect  the  conviction  of  the  age  out  of  which  they 
come,  are  they  faithful  to  the  age  of  which  they  treat,  and 
especially  to  him  in  whom  centres  all  their  interest?  Dr. 
Martineau  holds  otherwise ;  and  as  a  newly  discovered 
fossil  in  the  rocks  may  rule  the  construction  of  wide 
ranges  of  scientific  inference,  so  from  certain  "  slight  but 
speaking  indications  "  he  draws  from  the  Synoptics  a  con- 
clusion exactly  the  reverse  of  that  which  they  were  severally 
written  to  justify. 

He  draws  his  first  critical  inference  from  a  study  of  the 
names  by  which  Messiah  is  designated.  These  are  three : 
the  Son  of  David,  the  Son  of  Man,  the  Son  of  God.  In 
the  age  that  brought  forth  the  Synoptic  writings  these 
were  undoubtedly  interchangeable  terms ;  they  meant  one 
and  all  Messiah.  But  in  the  prior  age  when  Jesus  walked 
among  men,  were  they  so?  Dr.  Martineau  finds  uncon- 
scious testimony  that  they  were  not  in  an  unequal  use  of 
them  that  could  not  have  been  accidental.^ 

By  his  countrymen  Jesus  was  spoken  to  and  spoken  of 
as  the  Son  of  David.  "Is  not  this  the  Son  of  David?" 
**  Thou  Son  of  David,  have  mercy  on  us."  "  Hosanna  to 
the  Son  of  David."  Their  startled  inquiry,  their  appeal 
for  help,  their  wondering  exclamation,  employ  always  this 
designation.     Of  course  it  was  appropriate  to  Messiah,  as 

1  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  333. 


266  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

to  any  one  of  David's  line.  The  point  to  notice  is,  that 
they  knew  him  by  no  higher  title.  Put  against  this  the 
title  Son  of  God,  and  you  vault  from  earth  to  heaven. 
Did  we  meet  as  coming  from  their  lips,  "  Is  not  this  the 
Son  of  God?"  "Jesus,  thou  Son  of  God,"  "  Hosanna  to 
the  Son  of  God,"  we  should  need  no  other  evidence  that 
this  supreme  title  was  current  with  them.  Their  non-use 
of  it  is  the  clearest  possible  negative  testimony  that  it  had 
no  currency  with  them.  Dr.  Martineau  holds  the  designa- 
tion "  Son  of  God  "  to  have  been  given  its  Messianic  mean- 
ing by  the  Christians  themselves,  as  it  is  not  used  in  any 
pre-Christian  literature  in  this  sense ;  while  in  the  earliest 
of  our  Gospels,  that  of  Mark,  it  is  only  so  used  "  by  the 
demons  he  cast  out,  and  the  Satan  who  tempted  him,"  ^ 
who  through  their  supernatural  and  devilish  nature  were 
supposed  to  have  special  discernment  of  him  as  their  divine 
and  invincible  antagonist.  Indeed  Dr.  Martineau  holds 
that  the  title  "  Son  of  God  "  was  bestowed  upon  Jesus  "  in 
virtue,  not  of  the  Messianic  office,  but  of  the  heavenly 
nature,  discovered  in  his  person :  and  was,  therefore,  first 
freely  given  to  him  by  his  disciples  after  his  passage  to 
immortal  life."  ^  He  draws  support  for  this  conclusion 
from  a  distinction  made  by  Paul,  who  speaks  of  Christ 

1  There  are  two  apparent  exceptions  which  he  notes.  One  is  the  ques- 
tion of  the  High  Priest,  "  Art  thou  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  Blessed  ? 
And  Jesus  said,  I  am."  [Mark  xiv.  6i,  62.]  Dr.  Martineau  finds  it  hard 
to  reconcile  this  open  avowal  with  repeated  shrinking  from  and  even  pro- 
hibition of  the  claim ;  and  made,  according  to  the  narrative,  within  the 
hearing  of  no  friendly  ear,  he  gravely  doubts  if  dependence  can  be  placed 
upon  so  exceptional  a  detail ;  and  this  especially  when  he  remembers  that 
"ere  it  could  be  set  down  as  matter  of  history, it  had  become  the  equal  wish 
of  Jewish  accusers  and  of  Christian  disciples  to  fasten  upon  the  crucified 
the  highest  Messianic  pretensions,  the  one  as  proof  of  imposture,  the  other 
as  a  warrant  for  their  faith."  The  other  seeming  exception  is  the  exclamation 
of  the  centurion  at  the  Cross  [Mark  xv.  39],  "  Truly  this  man  was  the  Son 
of  God."  Coming  from  a  Roman,  Dr.  Martineau  holds  that  this  language 
can  have  no  Messianic  meaning,  but  only  one  compatible  with  a  heathen's 
conception  of  divine  things.  Seat  0/ AuiAori/y,  pp.  233-334- 
2  /itd.  p.  334 


THE   NEW  TESTAMENT   CRITIC  26^ 

as  "  of  the  seed  of  David  according  to  the  flesh ;  and  de- 
clared to  be  the  Son  of  God  with  power,  according  to  the 
Spirit  of  hoHness,  by  the  resurrection  from  the  dead."^ 
This  was  in  harmony  with  a  ruhng  idea  that  "  it  was  the 
spiritual  constitution  of  beings  more  than  human  "  which 
brought  their  nature  "  into  antithesis  with  the  animal  life 
and  affinity  with  the  essence  of  God."  Accordingly,  until 
the  exigencies  of  a  theory  required  it,  this  august  title 
could  hardly  have  been  applied  to  the  Son  of  David  here 
on  earth ;  but  only  to  his  spiritual  essence,  free  of  incarna- 
tion and  lifted  into  heaven. 

Neither  then  in  the  title  "  Son  of  David,"  nor  in  the  su- 
preme title  "  Son  of  God,"  do  we  find  evidence  that  Jesus 
was  regarded  by  those  around  him  as  the  Messiah ;  evi- 
dence that  should  be  held  assured  in  the  face  of  more  gen- 
eral and  opposing  considerations.  We  come  next  to  the 
Son  of  Man.  It  is  by  this  title  that  Jesus  designates  him- 
self, and  from  its  meaning  as  he  uses  it  we  must  judge 
whether  he  claims  the  Messiahship  or  no.  The  phrase  was 
not  of  his  inventing :  it  was  current  in  his  time ;  the  Scrip- 
tures that  he  read  were  full  of  it.  Its  meaning,  too,  far 
from  being  fixed,  was  extremely  fluid.  "  Behold  even  the 
moon,  and  it  shineth  not;  yea,  the  stars  are  not  pure  in  his 
sight.  How  much  less  man,  that  is  a  worm?  and  the  son 
of  man,  which  is  a  worm  ?  "  ^  "  What  is  man,  that  thou 
art  mindful  of  him?  and  the  son  of  man,  that  thou  visitest 
him?  "  ^  "  Put  not  your  trust  in  princes,  nor  in  the  son  of 
man,  in  whom  there  is  no  help."^  In  these  passages  and 
many  others  like  them  it  is  plainly  the  human  species  that 
is  contemplated.  The  Scriptures  say  "  son  of  man  "  where 
we  say  simply  "  man."  There  are,  however,  other  passages 
that  show  another  use.  "  Son  of  man,  stand  upon  thy  feet, 
and  I  will  speak  unto  thee."  ^     "  Then   said  he  unto  me, 

^  Rom.  i.  3-4.  2  JqI)  XXV.  5-6.  ^  Ps.  viii.  4. 

*  Ps.  cxlvi.  3.  6  Ezek.  ii.  i. 


268  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

Hast  thou  seen  this,  O  son  of  man?"i  "  Understand,  O 
son  of  man."  2  Here  it  is  applied  in  the  form  of  address  to 
the  individual,  and  is  equivalent  to  our  phrase,  "  O  man;  " 
though  as  this  use  of  it  is  met  in  only  one  passage  outside 
of  Ezekiel,  where  it  occurs  eighty-nine  times  in  the  address 
of  Jehovah  to  the  prophet,  Dr.  Martineau  conceives  that  it 
may  have  a  tacit  reference  to  the  Seer's  office.  There  is 
yet  one  other  use  of  this  title,  met  in  one  passage  only : 
"  I  saw  in  the  night  visions,  and,  behold,  one  like  the  Son 
of  man  came  with  the  clouds  of  heaven,  and  came  to  the 
Ancient  of  days,  and  they  brought  him  near  before  him. 
And  there  was  given  him  dominion,  and  glory,  and  a  king- 
dom, that  all  people,  nations,  and  languages,  should  serve 
him."  ^  This  passage  has  attracted  a  good  deal  of  atten- 
tion, not  alone  for  its  striking  imagery,  but  also  for  the 
suggestion  of  a  person  to  whom  this  title  peculiarly  be- 
longs ;  and  not  a  few  have  been  anxious  to  maintain  that 
here  is  contemplated  a  personal  Messiah.  A  little  careful 
reading,  however,  should  make  it  plain  that  we  are  not 
dealing  here  with  a  person  but  with  a  personification.  As 
the  Seer  has  conceived  successive  heathen  nations  under 
the  figure  of  the  lion,  the  bear,  the  leopard,  and  another 
"  beast "  to  which  he  gives  no  name,  so  now  he  personifies 
humanity  under  the  image  of  the  Son  of  man. 

Such  were  the  uses  of  the  phrase  in  the  Old  Testament. 
We  come  now  to  the  New  Testament.  With  the  support 
of  current  usage  Jesus  could  easily  draw  the  title  to  him- 
self; he  could  apply  it  to  another;  after  the  analogy  of  its 
address  to  the  Seer  in  Ezekiel,  or  instructed  by  the  mystic 
imagery  of  Daniel,  he  could  apply  it  to  the  anticipated 
Messiah.  Using  it  in  any  of  these  ways,  he  would  have 
been  intelligible  to  those  about  him ;  and  examples  from 
his  sayings  that  to  the  unprepossessed  reader  would  sug- 
gest two  of  these  uses  would  not  be  difficult  to  find.  But 
^  Ezek.  viii.  15.  ^  Dan.  viii.  17.  ^  Dan.  vii.  13-14. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  CRITIC  269 

now  the  question  presses :  Did  he  give  the  title  a  new  use 
by  drawing  it  to  himself  as  Messiah  ?  Are  the  two  titles, 
as  we  meet  them  in  the  New  Testament,  of  equivalent 
meaning?  Where  he  says  "Son  of  man,"  could  we  with- 
out violence  to  his  meaning  substitute  "  Messiah"?  Such 
is  the  traditional  view,  which  the  Synoptic  writings  seem 
clearly  to  support,  but  which  in  their  very  text  Dr.  Mar- 
tineau  finds  reason  for  referring  to  the  prepossession  of 
their  compilers. 

At  the  threshold  of  this  study  a  question  obtrudes  itself: 
Did  Jesus  in  his  speech  use  language  with  a  view  to  intel- 
ligent impression,  or  did  he  consciously  use  it  in  such 
manner  as  to  mystify  those  who  heard  him?  If  we  recoil 
from  the  latter  supposition  as  unworthy  of  him,  we  seem 
driven  to  interpret  his  words  in  harmony  with  the  former. 
We  turn  now  to  his  earliest  use  of  this  title  in  our  canon : 
"  The  foxes  have  holes,  and  the  birds  of  the  air  have  nests  ; 
but  the  Son  of  man  hath  not  where  to  lay  his  head."  ^  Is 
this  equivalent  to  saying,  The  foxes  have  holes,  and  the 
birds  of  the  air  have  nests ;  but  I,  Messiah,  have  not  where 
to  lay  my  head  ?  In  theological  treatises  it  would  not  be 
difficult  to  find  exposition  to  this  tenor.  Yet  so  far  as 
the  record  shows,  this  utterance  is  responded  to  by  no 
surprise,  no  challenge  of  incredulity,  no  exclamation  of 
wonder,  such  as  must  surely  have  been  in  any  group  of 
Israelites  of  that  period  to  whom  it  had  been  declared  that 
the  Messiah  was  among  them.  The  Messiah,  the  great 
Deliverer  of  whom  prophets  told  and  for  whom  Israel 
longed,  —  can  we  imagine  how  the  word  would  have  passed 
from  lip  to  lip,  and  countenances  lowered  with  anger  or 
glowed  with  exultation,  according  as  they  saw  a  blasphe- 
mous pretender  or  him  who  should  fulfil  their  hope?  The 
evangelist's  silence  as  to  any  such  effect  of  this  language  is 
unconscious  testimony  that  it  bore  home  no  such  meaning. 

1  Matt.  viii.  20. 


270  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

If,  then,  "  Son  of  man  "  here  means  "  Messiah,"  Jesus  uses 
a  phrase  which  has  one  meaning  to  his  hearers  of  which 
he  is  certainly  aware,  and  another  to  himself  which  he 
makes  no  effort  to  make  plain. 

As  we  read  on,  we  meet  the  phrase  in  a  series  of  pas- 
sages, scattered  through  the  larger  portion  of  the  active 
ministry.  "  But  that  ye  may  know  that  the  Son  of  man 
hath  power  on  earth  to  forgive  sins."  ^  "  Ye  shall  not 
have  gone  over  the  cities  of  Israel,  till  the  Son  of  man  be 
come."^  "The  Son  of  man  came  eating  and  drinking."^ 
"For  the  Son  of  man  is  Lord  even  of  the  sabbath  day."  ^ 
"  He  that  soweth  the  good  seed  is  the  Son  of  man."  ^ 
"The  Son  of  man  shall  send  forth  his  angels."^  All  these 
passages,  notwithstanding  the  Messianic  sense  we  find  in 
them,  apparently  conveyed  none  to  Jesus'  hearers.  There 
seems  no  reason  to  suppose  that  they  attached  other  mean- 
ing to  the  phrase  as  it  fell  from  his  lips  than  when  they 
read  it  in  their  Scriptures  or  heard  it  in  the  synagogue. 

Of  the  fifteen  months  which,  as  Dr.  Martineau  reads,  is 
the  utmost  scope  which  the  Synoptics  allow  to  the  minis- 
try of  Jesus,  the  above  citations  are  drawn  from  the  record 
of  more  than  fourteen.  It  must  be  an  acute  eye  that  can 
detect  any  growing  explicitness  as  to  the  significance  of 
this  title ;  in  them  all  alike  Jesus  uses  it  as  if  speaking  to 
those  familiar  with  it,  and  with  no  apparent  effort  to  trans- 
form their  meaning  of  it.  Yet  by  comparison  of  texts  the 
theory  has  been  ingeniously  worked  out  that  Jesus  made  a 
progressive  disclosure  of  his  Messiahship.  Dr.  Martineau 
examines  this,  but  cannot  accept  it.  There  is,  indeed,  in 
all  these  Gospels  from  first  to  last  an  intensification  of  the 
Messianic  idea,  —  of  that  all  readers  are  sensible.  But  the 
question  may  be  asked  whether  this  is  due  to  progressive 
revelation  on  the  part  of  the  Master  or  growth  in  the  mind 

1  Matt.  ix.  6.  "^  Matt.  x.  23.  ^  Matt.  xi.  19. 

*  Matt.  xii.  8.  ^  Matt.  xiii.  37.  6  Matt.  xiii.  41. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  CRITIC  2/1 

of  the  disciples,  and  "  retrospectively  read  back  between 
the  lines  of  his  reported  life."  ^  In  the  consideration  of 
this  question  Dr.  Martineau  is  brought  to  Peter's  con- 
fession in  the  region  of  Csesarea  Philippi. 

The  refutation  of  Dr.  Martineau's  thesis,  most  will  agree, 
is  here  if  anywhere ;  let  us,  therefore,  read  the  passage 
through  his  eyes,  not  neglecting  to  use  our  own.  Galilee 
and  its  triumphs  have  been  left  behind ;  Jerusalem  with  its 
new  experiences  and  its  undoubted  perils  is  before.  Dr. 
Martineau  we  may  well  believe  not  wrong  when  he  con- 
ceives the  disciples  and  the  Master  to  be  in  different 
moods :  they  in  the  exultation  of  anticipated  triumph,  he 
in  pensive  meditation  upon  the  coming  struggle.  In  a 
pause  upon  the  way  he  asks  the  judgment  of  others  and  of 
themselves  respecting  him.  "  Whom  do  men  say  that  I, 
the  Son  of  man,  am?"  They  answer  John  the  Baptist 
or  one  of  the  prophets.  "  But  whom  say  ye  that  I  am?  " 
The  answer  is,  "Thou  art  the  Christ."^  Dr.  Martineau  is 
not  to  be  disputed  when  he  says :  "  If  the  term,  '  Son  of 
Man,'  was  only  a  synonym  for  '  the  Christ,'  and  Jesus  had 
been  habitually  applying  it  to  himself  through  the  previous 
year  or  years,  there  is  no  room  for  his  question  addressed 
to  them,  and  their  answer  was  a  mere  tautology."  ^  It  seems 
perfectly  clear,  if  this  is  authentic  language,  that  to  within 
seventeen  days  of  his  death  he  drew  this  title  to  himself  in 
no  Messianic  sense  whatever.  Further,  if  the  question, 
"Whom  say  ye  that  I  am?"  is  asked  with  a  view  to  elicit- 
ing a  confession  of  his  Messiahship,  it  is  hardly  less  clear 
that  up  to  this  time  he  had  not  been  known,  even  in  the 
inmost  circle  of  his  friends,  as  the  Messiah  at  all.  Thus 
the  evangelists  unconsciously  make  plain  the  fact  that  the 
Messiahship  of  Jesus,  which  from  first  to  last  is  on  the  sur- 
face of  their  writing,  up  to  this  date  had  not  been  learned 

^  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  347.  3  Matt.  xvi.  13-16. 

*  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  339. 


2/2  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

in  any  walks  with  Jesus ;  and  compel  us  to  think  of  it  as 
cast  back  from  later  years  when  theories  were  wrought  out 
respecting  him. 

Another  consideration  presses :  When  the  question  nar- 
rows to  "Whom  say  ye  that  I  am?"  and  Peter  answers, 
"Thou  art  the  Christ,"  does  Jesus  accept  the  title?  So 
evidently  the  evangelists  would  have  us  believe,  but  here 
again  their  unconscious  testimony  bears  the  other  way. 
He  meets  the  confession  by  peremptorily  enjoining 
silence.^  The  common  interpretation  of  this  is :  Yes,  I 
am  Messiah,  but  do  not  mention  it.  Why  not  mention  it? 
Shall  the  ambassador  of  God  withhold  his  credentials? 
If  indeed  the  Messiah,  what  was  there  to  do  but  mention 
it?  "Was  then  the  Messiahship  a  private  prerogative, 
which  could  be  clandestinely  held  ?  Was  it  not  rather  the 
ultimate  national  test  which  he  was  forced  to  offer  for  the 
judgment  of  Israel?"^  The  reasons  that  are  wont  to  be 
assigned  for  silence,  set  over  against  the  reasons  that 
should  have  impelled  proclamation,  are  incredible  for 
their  weakness ;  and  it  is  easier  to  doubt  the  evangelist 
than  to  think  such  trifling  of  the  Master.  If  all  is  not 
made  plain,  yet  none  the  less  light  breaks  upon  us  when 
we  conceive  the  command  not  to  report  that  he  was  Mes- 
siah a  posthumous  refashioning  of  a  repudiation  of  the 
claim:  "Silence!  to  not  a  creature  are  you  to  say  such 
a  thing  again  !  "  ^  Does  this  seem  a  charge  of  literary 
dishonesty?  I  see  rather  the  influence  of  prepossession, 
which  in  honest  intellects  has  more  than  once  played 
pranks  as  grave  as  this.     But  is   the    context  consistent 

^  I  do  not  forget  the  blessing  of  Simon  Bar-jona  and  the  gift  of  the 
keys.  The  fact,  however,  that  this  striking  passage  is  found  only  in 
Matthew,  that  Mark  and  Luke  while  giving  all  other  details  of  this  inter- 
view yield  no  hint  of  anything  like  it,  compels  me  to  hold  with  those  who 
doubt  its  genuineness. 

"^  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  352. 

*  Ibid.  p.  349. 


THE   NEW  TESTAMENT   CRITIC  2/3 

with  this  view?  "From  that  time  forth  began  Jesus  to  show 
unto  his  disciples,  how  that  he  must  go  unto  Jerusalem, 
and  suffer  many  things  of  the  elders  and  chief  priests  and 
scribes,  and  be  killed,  and  be  raised  again  the  third  day."  i 
—  Killed  and  raised  again  the  third  day  !  Unless  we  are 
dealing  in  these  words  with  that  to  which  criticism  cannot 
apply,  we  have  surely  an  order  of  events  thrown  back 
upon  lips  that  could  not  possibly  have  told  of  them.  But 
grant  to  Jesus  a  presage  of  suffering  and  death,  what 
significance  could  its  announcement  have  to  the  mind  of 
Peter?  Was  any  idea  further  from  the  Jewish  mind  than 
that  of  a  slain  Messiah?  To  Peter  such  a  forecast  on  the 
part  of  his  Master  must  mean  the  utter  rejection  of  his 
confession.  In  their  significance  to  his  mind,  the  com- 
mand that  he  tell  no  man  the  great  truth  of  his  Messiah- 
ship  together  with  intelligence  that  he  was  about  to  die 
could  only  be  hopeless  contradictories ;  and  the  most 
hopeful  reconciliation  of  the  two  passages  seems  clearly 
to  be  through  Dr.  Martineau's  transformation  of  the  first 
one.  But  when  Peter  is  told  of  death,  is  he  not  told  of 
resurrection  too?  If  the  former  bears  in  upon  him  the 
thought  of  defeat,  should  not  the  latter  mean  to  him  a 
surpassing  triumph?  So  clearly  it  would  seem.  He, 
however,  reads  with  other  eyes  than  Dr.  Martineau's  to 
whom  this  record,  taken  at  its  surface  value,  bears  no 
insuperable  difficulty.  Peter's  rebuke,  "  Be  it  far  from 
thee.  Lord :  this  shall  not  be  unto  thee,"  ^  makes  it  per- 
fectly plain  that  if  anything  was  said  about  resurrection 
he  did  not  hear  it ;  that  his  mind  is  ruled  by  thought  of 
defeat  and  ignominy  alone.  Here,  too,  we  need  to  take 
account  of  the  conduct  of  Jesus.  Does  he  comfort  by 
correcting  his  disciple,  as  so  easy  for  him  to  do?  Does 
he  say,  "  Peter,  you  mistake ;  I  told  you  of  my  death, 
indeed,  but  did  I  not  speak  of  resurrection  also?     Would 

1  Matt.  xvi.  21.  2  Matt.  xvi.  22. 

18 


2/4  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

you  withhold  me  from  a  temporary  darkness  which  shall 
be  the  prekide  to  such  matchless  light?  restrain  me  from 
the  contest  which,  because  the  hardest  of  all,  shall  prove 
me  the  supreme  of  conquerors"?  His  stern  language 
rather  is,  "  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan :  thou  art  an  of- 
fence unto  me."  ^  Nothing  seems  plainer  than  that  he 
takes  the  apostle's  attitude,  than  that  he  forecasts  the 
hard  issue  at  Jerusalem  and  nothing  beyond  it.  "  If," 
asks  Dr.  Martineau,  "  Jesus  knew  and  had  just  said  that 
he  should  '  lay  down  his  life  that  he  might  take  it  again,' 
if,  having  explained  that  this  was  the  Divine  gateway  to 
the  Messiahship,  he  was  going  to  Jerusalem  on  purpose 
to  pass  through  it,  how  is  it  possible  that  he  should  meet 
the  apostle's  suggestion  as  an  alternative,  and  thrust  it 
away  as  a  temptation  ?  "  He  adds  :  "  It  is  only  in  the  deep 
darkness  of  the  soul,  where  nothing  is  clear  but  the  nearest 
duty  and  its  instant  anguish,  and  the  issue  is  shut  out  by 
the  midnight  between,  that  any  Satan  can  slink  in  with 
pleas  of  ease  and  evasion."  ^  The  testimony,  therefore, 
though  unconscious  seems  irrefutable,  that  no  resurrection 
forecast  could  have  had  place  in  this  interview,  that  we 
here  deal  with  a  later  faith  woven  into  the  structure  of 
earlier  memorials ;  and  that  Jesus  and  the  apostle  are 
alike  contemplating  a  martyrdom  unrelieved  by  vision  of 
aught  beyond  it. 

Of  course  this  inference  is  irreconcilable  with  the 
Messianic  claim ;  but  is  not  the  traditional  view  of  this 
passage  supported  elsewhere  in  the  sacred  narrative? 
However  unsatisfactory  its  impression  when  we  study  it 
alone,  may  we  not  draw  confidence  of  its  genuineness 
from  later  utterances  of  the  Master?  After  the  Transfig- 
uration, did  he  not  charge  his  disciples  that  they  tell  no  man 
of  this  "until  the  Son  of  man  be  risen  from  the  dead"  "i^ 

^  Matt.  xvi.  23.  2  Seat  0/  Authority,  p.  350. 

*  Matt.  xvii.  9. 


THE  NEW   TESTAMENT   CRITIC  2/5 

In  forecast  of  his  Passion  does  he  not  tell  how  the  chief 
priests  and  scribes  "  shall  condemn  him  to  death,  and 
shall  deliver  him  to  the  Gentiles  to  mock,  and  to  scourge, 
and  to  crucify  him :  and  tJie  third  day  he  shall  rise 
again  "  ?  ^  At  the  close  of  the  last  meal  with  his  disciples 
did  he  not  comfort  them  with  the  assurance,  *'  After  I  ant 
risen  again,  I  will  go  before  you  into  Galilee  "  ?  ^  So  testi- 
fies the  record  surely ;  and  if  the  assurance  is  to  be  held 
genuine  because  clearly  "  written  in  the  book,"  faith  may 
ask  no  more,  and  we  may  dismiss  our  difficulties  with 
the  passage  we  have  reviewed  as  pertaining  to  its  rhetoric 
only.  But  change  the  point  of  view.  Allowing  these 
assurances  to  have  come  from  the  lips  of  Jesus,  did  the 
after  conduct  of  the  disciples  in  any  manner  reflect  them  ? 
What  should  have  been  their  conduct?  —  What  were 
ours,  for  instance,  if  in  earnest  talk  with  a  friend  about 
to  die  he  should  bear  in  upon  us  assurance,  "  I  go  away 
indeed,  but  on  the  third  morning  after  I  will  return ;  per- 
haps in  other  form  and  lineament,  and  with  other  eyes 
than  look  upon  you  now,  yet  in  my  inmost  reality  the 
same"?  Should  we  not  comfort  his  lingering  pain,  and 
with  a  smile  turn  away  to  make  ready  for  his  welcome? 
Yet  the  ordeal  finds  the  disciples  totally  unprepared. 
The  assurance  so  often  breathed  yields  them  no  support ; 
of  the  promise  to  go  before  them  into  Galilee  —  a  thing 
impossible  to  forget  —  they  have  no  remembrance  until 
an  angel  at  the  open  sepulchre  brings  it  back  to  them.^ 
Their  conduct,  in  short,  was  precisely  such  as  had  been 
most  natural  had  no  such  word  of  cheer  been  spoken  to 
them.  How  explain  this  failure  of  the  Master's  word 
even  to  gain  lodgment  in  the  disciples'  memory?  Were 
resurrections  such  ordinary  occurrences  at  Jerusalem  that 
a  promise  of  one  might  be  crowded  out  of  mind  by  the 

1  Matt.  XX.  19.  2  Matt.  xxvi.  32. 

8  See  Matt,  xxviii.  7,  8,  9,  10,  il.     Compare  John  ii.  22. 


2/6  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

press  of  Other  interests,  like  the  letters  or  the  invitations 
of  a  busy  man?  Could  they  think  him  dead  and  not 
remember?  Could  they  sorrow  for  him  and  not  recall? 
We  are  here  dealing  with  a  difficulty  of  which  the  standard 
theories  of  the  New  Testament  provide  no  reconciliation. 
Dr.  Martineau's  statement  may  not  be  the  final  word ; 
but  he  seems  in  accord  with  human  nature  and  the  laws 
of  the  human  mind  and  the  literary  methods  of  the  time 
when  he  says:  "Every  feature  of  the  tragedy,  as  it 
occurred,  took  them  by  surprise ;  and  not  till  they  after- 
wards discovered  that  just  these  things  '  the  Christ  ought 
to  suffer  and  to  enter  into  his  glory,'  did  they  feel  sure 
that  he  must  have  known  and  voluntarily  met  it  all,  and 
have  said  enough  to  let  them  know  it  too,  had  they  not 
been  '  slow  of  heart  to  believe  what  the  prophets  had 
spoken.'  "  ' 

The  conclusion,  then,  drawn  from  unconscious  testi- 
mony, is  that  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus  has  anything  but 
the  sure  support  that  is  claimed  for  it ;  that  his  application 
to  himself  of  the  title  "  Son  of  man  "  does  not  necessarily 
imply  it ;  that  the  Messianic  claim,  in  short,  though  put 
forth  by  the  evangelists,  may  be  none  of  his.  Nor  for 
support  of  this  judgment  are  we  left  to  unconscious  testi- 
mony alone.  There  are  sayings  attributed  to  Jesus  that 
seem  strained  and  unnatural  if  we  suppose  him  conscious 
that  he  was  the  Messiah.  Dr.  Martineau  dwells  on  the 
fact,  which  others  besides  him  have  discerned,  that  in 
his  forecasts  of  the  downfall  of  Jerusalem  and  of  the  con- 
vulsions of  the  world,  events  prelusive  to  the  coming  of 
the  Son  of  man,  not  one  of  the  evangelists  makes  him 
speak  of  the  drama  as  "  belonging  to  himself."  Always 
he  speaks  in  the  third  person  of  the  Son  of  man.^  "Then 
shall  appear  the  sign  of  the  Son  of  man  in  heaven."  ^     "  So 

1  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  351.  *  Ibid.  p.  354. 

'  Matt.  xxiv.  30. 


THE  NEW   TESTAMENT   CRITIC  21^ 

shall  also  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  man  be."  ^  "  Ye  know 
neither  the  day  nor  the  hour  wherein  the  Son  of  man 
Cometh."  ^  "  When  the  Son  of  man  shall  come  in  his  glory, 
and  all  the  holy  angels  with  him."  ^  Regarding  these 
passages  as  forecasts  of  the  Messiah,  as  one  yet  to  appear, 
they  would  have  been  as  to  their  form  as  appropriate  to 
the  lips  of  John  or  Peter  as  his  own.  To  another  pecu- 
liarity of  Jesus'  use  of  language  Dr.  Martineau  calls  atten- 
tion :  He  always  speaks  of  the  co7?tmg  of  the  Son  of 
man ;  never  of  his  coming  back.  If  Jesus  draws  the  title 
to  himself  as  Messiah,  and  contemplates  death  as  a  far 
country  through  which  he  will  travel  ere  entering  upon  his 
office,  —  the  same  personality  that  is  with  them  now  to  be 
with  them  once  more,  his  language  is  wholly  inappropriate. 
He  was  here  then ;  his  future  coming  should  be  a  coming 
again  or  a  returning. 

These  considerations  have  critical  weight,  but  there  is 
clearly  another  of  more  vital  significance  to  Dr.  Martineau  : 
His  profound  reverence  for  the  person  of  Jesus  is  troubled 
at  the  thought  of  him  as  drawing  to  himself  the  fulfilment 
of  that  "  Israelitish  dream."  The  Messianic  claim  to  his 
mind  does  not  befit  the  lowly  yet  trusting  and  self-sur- 
rendered brother  of  his  heart.  Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  most 
dear  to  him ;  the  Messiah  of  Jerusalem  repels  rather  than 
draws  him.  Descent  from  heaven,  miraculous  powers,  which 
so  enrapture  others,  to  him  are  harmful  and  grotesque 
accessories  to  the  spirit  of  the  Beatitudes  and  Calvary. 
To  discredit  the  former  is  to  relieve  the  latter  of  that  which 
bedizens  and  dishonors  it.  This,  indeed,  is  not  woven  into 
the  structure  of  his  argument,  but  it  is  clearly  one  of  the 
under-considerations  that  most  deeply  move  him. 

It  is  a  long  way  we  have  travelled,  and  the  end  is  — 
what?  Prevalent  theories  of  inspiration  have  been  dis- 
carded, the  apostolic  origin  of  the  Gospels  has  been  de- 

1  Matt.  xxiv.  39.  2  Matt.  xxv.  13.  »  Matt.  xxv.  31. 


2/8  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

nied,  the  cardinal  doctrine  of  the  person  of  Jesus  on  which 
the  Church  is  reared  has  been  shown  untenable.  Some 
troubled  spirit  asks,  What  have  we  left?  Dr.  Martineau 
answers  —  God  ;  and  with  him  everything  essential.  While, 
too,  in  his  investigations  he  has  been  guided  by  the  love  of 
truth,  and  the  desire  before  all  things  to  proclaim  it,  any 
reader  of  him  may  see  that  it  is  in  the  cause  of  God  and 
to  promote  His  purer  and  more  spiritual  worship  that  he 
toils,  yes,  and  destroys.  In  his  view,  and  in  that  of  multi- 
tudes besides  him,  miraculously  given  Scriptures  and  an 
apocalyptic  Christ  are  not  unqualified  helps  to  spiritual 
religion ;  rather  they  carry  hindrances  that  are  grave,  and 
if  ever  they  were  of  high  service  to  this  end,  that  day  is 
passed.  In  the  Scriptures  taken  in  their  simplicity,  soul 
seeking  in  them  what  speaks  to  soul,  there  is  bread  of  life; 
while  in  the  daily  walk  to  have  him  of  Nazareth  for  com- 
panion is  to  experience  the  light  of  God  upon  the  path ; 
but  that  this  measure  of  blessing  may  remain  it  seems 
imperatively  demanded  that  infallibilities  and  apocalyptic 
Christologies  should  pass.  The  signs  of  the  times,  reflect- 
ing the  trend  and  temper  of  the  human  mind,  yield  support 
to  this  judgment.  The  defence  of  these  to-day  is  too 
labored  to  be  persuasive,  and,  instead  of  strengthening  faith, 
they  extend  and  intensify  scepticism.  Do  you  say  that 
without  these  the  Church  will  crumble,  that  in  the  teach- 
ings of  Martineau  is  the  potency  of  this  dark  consequence? 
Then  I  differ.  As  I  ponder  these  teachings  the  vision  that 
haunts  me  is  of  a  deeper  conviction,  a  more  vital  piety,  a 
more  confident  trust,  a  closer  walk  with  God.  But  if 
crumble  it  must,  then  for  truth's  sake  let  it.  Let  the  temple 
fall,  and  amid  its  ruins  we  will  take  comfort  from  the 
thought  that  the  walls  of  the  firmament  still  stand  :  and 
with  the  lights  gone  out  and  all  voices  silent,  we  will  fix 
our  gaze  upon  the  sheltering  and  enfolding  heaven. 


BOOK    III 

THE  PHILOSOPHER  OF  RELIGION 

CHAPTER   I 

KNOWLEDGE 

We  come  now  to  Dr.  Martineau's  contribution  to  the  phi- 
losophy of  reHgion.  In  the  forefront  of  all  inquiries  in  this 
field  is  the  question  of  knowledge:  What  can  we  know? 
What  themes  are  within  the  range  of  human  faculty?  Dr. 
Martineau's  thesis  is  a  "  Divine  Mind  and  Will  ruling  the 
universe."  The  first  question  is  not  whether  this  thesis  is 
true,  but  whether  it  is  one  with  which  the  mind  is  com- 
petent to  deal.  Phenomena  I  am  allowed  to  say  I  know. 
Through  all  my  senses  they  are  borne  in  upon  me  ;  I  group 
them  in  their  orders,  I  discover  their  relations,  I  detect 
their  laws ;  but  through  them  alone  I  do  not  come  to  a 
Divine  Mind  and  Will.  Here  clearly  is  assumption  of 
something  other  than  phenomena,  and  which  he  must  press 
beyond  their  confines  to  justify ;  and  the  question  of  our 
times  is  whether  these  confines  do  not  fix  the  limit  beyond 
which  human  intellect  may  not  go.  Time  was  when  this 
question  could  have  awakened  no  anxiety ;  when  he  who 
would  investigate  the  higher  problems  of  human  interest 
approached  them  nothing  doubting  that  in  the  human 
mind  was  capacity  for  dealing  with  them.  The  era  of  this 
happy  confidence  passed  when  men  saw  the  significance  of 
Kant's  philosophy. 


280  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

For  from  Kant  we  date  the  prevailing  trend  of  modern 
agnosticism.  I  say  Kant,  not  forgetting  Hume,  who  has 
been  held  by  some  the  master  of  those  who  do  not  know. 
In  recent  years  his  views  have  been  the  ward  of  men  of 
science.  Professor  Huxley  calls  him  the  "  protagonist  of 
Agnosticism,"  from  his  pen  a  generous  but  candid  praise. 
He  was,  however,  too  near  to  being  the  despair  of  thought 
to  fix  its  vogue  even  in  the  domain  of  agnostic  theory. 
Agnosticism,  while  denying  us  the  certainty  we  call 
knowledge,  may  yet  leave  us  the  certitude  we  call  faith, 
and  in  some  measure  must  do  so  in  order  to  establish 
an  ascendency  with  us.  Hume  conducts  to  scepticism, 
and  leaves  us  but  its  hopeless  blank. 

It  will  help  us  to  see  these  two  agnosticisms  together. 
Hume  finds  the  origin  of  all  our  ideas  in  sensations.  The 
organism  receives  impressions ;  the  ideas  of  the  mind  are 
copies  of  these ;  and  this  view  unfolded  and  applied  is  his 
doctrine.  But  there  are  ideas  which  we  cannot  refer  to 
individual  impressions.  Yes,  impressions  occur  in  definite 
relations,  and  the  mind  takes  ideas  from  these.  They 
occur,  for  instance,  in  succession,  a  fact  that  passes  into 
the  mind  as  the  idea  of  time ;  they  occur  simultaneously, 
and  hence  the  idea  of  space.  Time  and  space  are  the 
mental  presentation  of  these  two  orders  of  impressions ; 
and  other  meaning  they  have  none  with  which  the  phi- 
losopher need  concern  himself.  But  there  are  other  ideas 
which  thinkers  had  supposed  to  come  out  of  the  mind  it- 
self, as  identity  and  causality,  and  which  we  are  able  to 
trace  to  no  impressions.  For  instance,  identity.  It  seems 
to  me  the  tree  I  look  upon  from  my  window  is  the  object 
I  saw  standing  there  yesterday,  and  that  the  man  who  read 
Hume's  Essays  last  week  was  the  very  man  who  is  thinking 
about  them  this  morning.  The  tree  may  have  greener  or 
browner  leaves  to-day,  may  have  lost  a  number  or  put 
forth  a  few ;  yet  it  seems  to  me  I  use  language  the  natural 


KNOWLEDGE  28 1 

and  unforced  meaning  of  which  is  true  when  I  say  it  is  the 
same  tree.  Likewise  the  thinker  of  this  morning  may  be 
in  some  particulars  other  than  the  reader  of  a  week  ago ; 
but  the  difference  seems  to  me  to  He  on  the  surface  of  a 
fundamental  identity.  Every  such  consideration  Hume 
meets  with  the  comprehensive  denial  that  any  interior 
principle  of  things  or  of  ourselves  can  be  known.  What 
we  have  in  either  case  is  a  close  resemblance  of  impressions, 
which,  however  close,  are  really  different.  The  congeries 
of  impressions  received  to-day  is  so  like  the  congeries  of 
impressions  received  yesterday  that  the  mind  conceives 
them  the  same.  Identity,  that  is,  is  an  illusion.  So  the 
relation  of  cause  and  effect  which  seems  to  rule  the  world. 
We  see  the  sun  shine  and  the  ice  melt,  medicine  given  and 
pain  relieved ;  and  so  ever  a  prior  event  and  a  sequent  one, 
and  regard  the  sequent  event  as  contingent  upon  the  prior, 
and  as  occurring  through  its  agency.  Here  Hume  breaks 
with  us.  Sequences  of  events  may  be  plain  enough,  but 
causal  law  he  will  allow  none.  In  the  sequences  that  pass 
before  us  it  is  just  the  sequences  that  we  see,  not  any  bond 
between  them.  There  is  what  we  call  antecedent,  and 
there  is  what  w'e  call  consequent ;  but  that  unity  between 
them  that  makes  them  two  aspects  of  a  composite  phe- 
nomenon he  will  not  suffer  us  to  affirm.  Events,  he  would 
say,  are  conjoined,  but  how  can  we  say  they  are  united? 
The  origin  of  the  causal  idea  he  thus  explains :  Certain 
impressions  always  occur  in  pairs  and  in  the  same  order ; 
and  so  from  multiplied  experience  of  these  there  results  a 
subjective  cohesiveness  between  them,  which  compels  us, 
discerning  one  member  of  the  pair,  to  look  for  the  other 
one.  The  idea  of  cause  means  nothing  more  than  a  habit 
of  the  mind  which  results  from  long  experience. 

The  issue  of  this  we  need  no  deep  insight  to  discover. 
Identity  denied  me,  I  am  with  respect  to  my  interior  nature 
but  a  congeries  of  fleeting  impressions ;   causality  discred- 


282  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

ited,  I  can  pass,  by  no  reasoning,  from  the  appearances 
with  which  I  deal  to  a  reahty  out  of  which  they  spring.  I 
am  thus  doubly  doomed  to  ignorance,  from  a  limitation  of 
my  faculties  which  will  allow  me  to  know  nothing  real  and 
from  the  constitution  of  things  which  will  allow  nothing 
real  to  be  known.  A  congeries  of  impressions  is  obviously 
incapable  of  a  knowledge  of  realities  ;  and,  given  whatever 
phenomena,  if  the  causal  clue  be  wanting,  an  angel's  intel- 
ligence should  find  in  them  no  meaning.  Real  knowledge 
implies  a  persistent  Ego  and  an  intelligible  order;  Hume 
yields  us  a  congeries  of  phantasms  and  a  universe  of  phan- 
tasmagoria. And  the  final  result?  —  The  sensible,  yes, 
but  no  gleam  of  a  supersensible ;  phenomena,  but  no  abid- 
ing ground  of  them ;  the  oscillating  wave  of  appearance, 
but  no  changeless  deep ;  stars  rolling  and  burning,  but  no 
heaven  that  holds  them ;  order  and  beauty,  reverence  and 
wonder,  but  —  no  soul,  no  God. 

Kant  proved  Hume's  doctrine  and  found  it  wanting. 
He  found  that  the  mind  did  not  merely  register  impres- 
sions, but  also  contributed  to  impressions  somewhat  from 
itself  From  myriad  sources  impressions  are  received  ;  the 
mind  construes  them  in  the  relations  of  space  and  time, 
which  are  moulds  within  it,  not  realities  beyond  it.  Here 
is  a  most  radical  departure  from  Hume's  doctrine.  The 
latter  teaches  that  space  and  time  are  learned  by  experi- 
ence, the  former  that  the  mind  brings  them  to  experience 
out  of  its  own  nature  as  mind.  In  the  perceptive  act  these 
are  the  mind's  contribution.  In  the  cognitive  act  the  mind 
brings  its  contribution  likewise.  Outwardly  there  is  offered 
us  the  accidental,  the  phenomenal ;  the  mind  furnishes  the 
substantive,  the  noumcnal.  Attribute  we  cannot  divorce 
from  entity ;  yet  entity  is  not  offered  to  the  senses,  but  is 
brought  by  the  mind  itself  to  what  were  phantasm  with- 
out it.  So  of  causality.  All  I  perceive,  indeed,  is  a  prior 
event  and  a  sequent  one.     Were  I   merely  a  registry  of 


KNOWLEDGE  283 

impressions,  the  order  of  events  here,  antecedent  and  con- 
sequent, would  be  all  that  would  impress  me ;  and,  though 
from  repetition  of  this  order  the  appearance  of  one  might 
suggest  the  other,  I  should  discern  no  closer  relation  be- 
tween them.  But  a  closer  relation,  the  relation  of  cause 
and  effect,  I  do  discern ;  and,  as  I  cannot  receive  this 
through  the  senses,  the  mind  must  contribute  it.  It  must 
be  a  part  of  the  a  priori  equipment  with  which  I  meet  and 
construe  the  world. 

Thus,  then,  the  images  and  conceptions  of  my  mind  I 
may  not  refer  to  sensuous  experience  alone,  for  the  mind 
has  part  in  them.  Experience  furnishes  the  raw  material 
of  which  they  are  formed  ;  the  mind  fashions  them.  They 
are  shapeless  bullion  as  the  mind  receives  them ;  it  moulds 
them  into  coin,  and  stamps  them  with  Caesar's  image  and 
superscription.  But,  observe,  with  this  result:  sijice  they 
are  formed  within  my  mind  I  can  ajffirin  for  them  no  out- 
ward validity.  Were  the  mind  a  camera,  the  image  within 
it  might  be  a  faithful  counterpart  of  the  object  before  it; 
but  since  the  mind  is  not  a  camera  but  a  die,  the  features 
of  the  image  are  such  as  the  mind  has  given  it.  Had  I 
one  a  priori  endowment  more,  or  one  less,  the  difference 
would  be  confessed  in  the  structure  of  my  world.  The  dog 
follows  in  the  path  of  his  master ;  he  receives  impressions 
as  his  master  receives  them.  Yet  that  his  world  and  his 
master's  are  very  different  worlds,  is  probable ;  and  the 
difference  should  find  explanation  in  the  different  moulds 
in  which  their  worlds  are  respectively  fashioned.  All  of 
which  illustrates  the  Kantian  doctrine  that  my  world  is 
only  my  world.  It  is  his  oft  quoted  dictum  that  "  Mind 
makes  Nature  ;  "  which  is  his  way  of  saying  that  we  project 
out  from  ourselves  the  sceneries  we  look  upon.  To  this 
result  we  come :  The  impressions  we  receive  from  the 
outer  world  are  fashioned  by  the  mind  into  an  ideal 
structure,  which,  because  ideal,  cannot  be  real. 


284  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

But  this  is  not  all.  Of  the  three  departments  of  the 
mind,  the  perception,  the  understanding,  the  reason,  there 
remains  the  last.  The  question  is  whether,  through  this, 
we  may  not  reach  the  object  of  our  quest.  He  studies  it, 
but  to  the  like  negative  result.  The  reason,  as  he  con- 
ceives it,  is  as  the  sky  over  our  heads,  the  seat  of  the  un- 
conditioned, to  which  the  judgments  of  the  understanding 
are  ever  pressing,  and  in  which  their  unity  is  realized.  We 
need  not  follow  the  steps  of  his  analysis.  He  finds  in  the 
reason  three  ineradicable  ideas,  —  of  an  Immortal  Soul,  an 
Infinite  Universe,  an  extramundane  God.  Here  they  are, 
and  because  of  them,  the  belief  in  realities  answering  to 
them  is  natural  if  not  irresistible.  But  from  idea  to  reality 
can  we  cut  out  a  logical  pathway?  Kant  says  no;  and, 
one  after  another,  he  pulverizes  every  argument  that  main- 
tains the  contrary.  With  earlier  philosophers  these  ideas 
had  been  an  arch  by  which  they  crossed  over  to  the 
country  of  their  heart  and  hope.  Kant  blew  up  the  arch. 
Thus  the  mind  was  entirely  insulated.  Its  world  was  wholly 
within.  Mountains  towered,  oceans  heaved,  suns  glowed, 
God  was,  eternity  hovered  on  the  view,  in  idea  and  in  idea 
only. 

Such,  as  seen  against  Hume's,  is  Kant's  agnosticism. 
The  two  philosophers  are  perhaps  as  far  apart  in  their 
influence  as  in  the  fundamentals  of  their  doctrine.  While 
religion  has  recoiled  from  Hume  as  a  speculative  Mephis- 
topheles,  it  has  found  in  Kant  an  ally  and  a  friend.  On 
the  a  priori  foundation  which  he  laid  but  on  which  he 
could  not  build,  others  have  builded,  and  felt  their  temple 
resting  on  the  granite  pillars  of  the  world.  Yet  with  re- 
spect to  the  great  problem  of  knowledge  they  were  in  about 
like  measure  agnostic.  The  latter  locks  you  up  at  home 
with  a  priori  semblances ;  the  former  sends  you  abroad 
amid  empiric  phantoms,  yourself  a  phantom.  Kant  will 
allow  no  converse  with  realities,  though  he  finds  in  the  mind 


KNOWLEDGE  285 

the  ineradicable  forms  of  them ;  Hume  will  grant  no  reali- 
ties with  which  to  converse.  The  former  finds  no  highway ; 
the  latter  dreams  no  whither.  Hume  is  the  spirit  that 
denies  ;  Kant  is  suggestive  of  bafifled  hope.  To  the  seeker 
of  Elysian  Fields  Kant  says,  This  route  is  impossible ; 
Hume  offers  conduct  to  an  abyss  yawning  and  black,  which 
no  bridge  may  span,  no  sail  or  wing  may  cross. 

The  foregoing  sketch  shows  agnosticism  in  two  aspects, 
that  which  will  not  let  me  know  a  world  around  me  and 
that  which  denies  me  knowledge  of  a  soul  and  God.  Dr. 
Martineau  pronounces  judgment  upon  both.  First,  as  logi- 
cally first  in  order,  he  deals  with  the  question  whether  the 
images  of  the  mind  must  necessarily  be  thought  dissonant 
with  the  objects  and  relations  around  us. 

I.  In  his  general  philosophy  Dr.  Martineau  sets  out  with 
Kant.  The  Kantian  doctrine  that  the  mind  gains  percep- 
tion of  an  outer  world  through  space  and  time,  regarded  as 
a  priori  forms,  mended  in  some  of  its  details,  he  makes  his 
own  by  adoption.  Time  and  space,  whether  objectively 
real  or  no,  are  subjective  means  by  which  the  mind  takes 
the  world  into  itself.  They  give  form  to  the  other- 
wise formless  impressions.  Time  arranges  them  in  their 
sequences,  space  spreads  them  in  their  co-existences,  and 
thus  the  orderly  picture  is  furnished  us.  The  categories 
of  the  understanding,  too,  while  in  some  details  he  mends 
the  Kantian  exposition  of  them,  his  intellect,  by  its  strongly 
marked  a  priori  tendency,  is  prepared  to  welcome.  No 
writer  of  modern  times  has  looked  more  confidently  within 
himself  for  the  fashioning  principles  of  philosophic  judg- 
ment. Here,  however,  he  diverges  from  his  philosopher. 
As  set  over  against  the  Kantian  idealism,  his  attitude  is 
that  of  unflinching  reahsm.  One  concession  to  it  he 
makes,  if  the  admission  of  a  fact  so  obvious  can  be  called 
a  concession :  the  outer  world  of  our  psychology  "  comes 


286  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

to  US  as  postulated,  not  as  demonstrated."  ^     The   forms 
within  the  mind  we  can  correctly  study  without  respect  to 
its  postulates,  whether  they  be  true  or  no.     These  forms 
may  be  the  mental   presentations  of  objective  realities  or 
they  may  be  subjective  illusions,  and  "  either  supposition 
is  compatible  with  assent  to  the  psychology  of  the  critical 
philosophy."  ^     It  seems  to  me  the  picture  world  within 
me  has  a  counterpart  in   an  actual  world  outside  of  me ; 
yet,   speaking  with   the  fear  of  logic   before  my  eyes,  it 
need  not  be  so.     Very  likely  Orion   hangs  above  me,  a 
real  object  answering  faithfully  to  my  vision  ;   but  possibly 
"  some    god   paints  the   image    in    the   firmament   of  the 
soul ;  "  and  possibly,  and  this  is  the  ideal  theory,  the  mind 
is  the  demiurge  of  its  own  constellations.     The  presence 
in  thought  of  these  alternatives  there  is  no  denying ;  and 
if  Kant's   speculation  proceeded  on    the  assumption  that 
neither  of  them  can  be  logically  removed.  Dr.  Martineau 
declares  that  the  position  would  be  "  unassailable."     To 
balance,  however,  between  two  unprovable  and  irrefutable 
hypotheses  was  not  of  Kant ;  rather  he  set  forth  the  claims 
of  one  with  an  emphasis  that  meant  the  repudiation  of  the 
other.     Because  in  the  forming  of  experience  the  mind  is 
a  factor,  his  contention  is  that  we  can  know  only  our  ideas; 
nay,  more,  that  between  the  object  of  my  contemplation 
as  something  beyond  me  and  the  form  of  it  as  presented 
within  me  there  is  a  hopeless  contrariety.     There  seems 
to  many  students  an  arbitrariness  in  thus  urging  the  claims 
of  one  alternative  with  scarcely  a  provisional   recognition 
of  the  equally  valid  claims  of  the  other.     Accordingly  Dr. 
Martineau,  as  the  critic  of  Kant's  agnosticism,  brings  for- 
ward   the  alternative  hypothesis  as  at  least  entitled  to  a 
hearing.     It  is   barely  possible  that   things  may  be  pre- 
sented truly.     The  form  within  the  mind  may  correspond 
with  the  object  beyond  it; — the  supposition  that  it  does 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  66.  ^  /j/^_  p_  5^^ 


KNOWLEDGE  28/ 

SO  is  at  least  worth  trying.  It  is  true  that  we  cannot  set 
the  form  within  against  the  thing  without,  and  so  prove  an 
agreement  between  them ;  but  neither,  in  Hke  manner,  can 
we  prove  a  disagreement.  The  theory  of  disagreement  is 
an  inference  from  an  ingenious  doctrine  of  the  working  of 
the  human  mind ;  the  theory  of  agreement  is  supported 
by  the  general  faith  of  the  intellect,  which  Dr.  Martineau 
sees  no  clear  need  to  surrender.  Nor  does  he  find  it  diffi- 
cult to  convict  Kant  of  inconsistency  here ;  for  the  faith 
which  his  doctrine  repudiates  he  yet  acts  upon.  Kant 
always  affirmed  external  realities,  however  he  might  fasten 
upon  us  the  doom  of  ignorance  respecting  them.  But 
what  is  the  warrant  of  his  belief  in  them?  Why,  the 
general  faith  of  the  intellect,  or,  as  Dr.  Martineau  states 
it,  "confidence  in  an  intuitive  necessity  of  thought."^ 
When  asked,  however,  to  allow  objective  validity  to  their 
mental  representation  this  faith  is  not  sufficient.  It  will  do 
for  the  things  in  themselves,  of  which,  apart  from  the  bald 
fact  of  their  existence,  he  allows  no  knowledge ;  but  for 
the  validity  of  the  images  of  them  it  will  not  do.  They 
are  fashioned  within  the  mind  according  to  forms  or 
moulds  of  its  own,  so  they  can  be  in  the  likeness  of 
nothing  beyond  them.  The  dilemma  here  to  all  except 
the  most  transcendental  of  transcendental  philosophers  is 
serious  ;  for  belief  in  the  harmony  of  these  representations 
with  the  things  about  us  it  is  impossible  to  surrender. 
That  is  to  say,  we  are  compelled  to  believe  it,  and  yet  it 
cannot  be  true.  And  with  the  like  reasoning  Dr.  Martineau 
deals  with  the  root  doctrine  of  the  Kantian  agnosticism, 
that  of  space  and  time.  According  to  that  doctrine  these 
are  inward  forms,  not  outward  realities ;  like  griefs  or  joys 
they  pertain  to  the  mind,  and  with  it  pass  away;  were  all 
minds  to  vanish,  space  and  time  would  be  no  more.  The 
whole  external  scene,  therefore,  is  clothed  in  illusion.     Dr. 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  69. 


288  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

Martineau  very  pertinently  asks,  "  If  the  '  forms '  and 
'  categories  '  of  the  mind  are  good  authority  for  '  never 
doubting '  existences  beyond  it,  why  will  they  not  serve  as 
guarantee  for  the  externality  of  Space  and  the  continuity 
of  Time  irrespective  of  our  senses?  "  ^  The  things  in  them- 
selves, transcendental  objects  of  which  no  predicates  can 
(be  named,  — how  is  it  that  we  believe  in  them?  Through 
"  an  intuitive  necessity  of  thought."  Why  do  we  deny  the 
reality  of  space  and  time?  On  the  ground  that  they  are 
only  an  "  intuitive  necessity  of  thought."  Dr.  Martineau 
holds  with  respect  to  these  parallel  beliefs  that  by  the  like 
necessity  of  thought  both  should  be  justified  or  both  dis- 
credited ;  in  other  words,  that,  through  the  faith  by  which 
Kant  held  to  his  realism,  he'  should  have  enlarged  its 
border,  or  that,  through  the  scepticism  by  which  he  limited 
it,  he  should  have  gone  forward  to  its  repudiation. 

We  come  to  his  most  radical  departure  from  his  philoso- 
pher. While  Kant  holds  space  and  time  to  be  merely  a 
priori  forms  of  perception,  and  therefore,  so  far  as  seem- 
ingly objective  to  us,  illusory,  Dr.  Martineau  holds  that 
the  fact  of  their  being  subjective  does  not  imply  the  im- 
possibility of  their  being  objective  also ;  and  so,  while  lay- 
ing tribute  to  their  subjectivity  for  the  great  service  that 
it  yields,  he  maintains  that  we  may  still  hold  fast  to  our 
natural  trust  in  the  "  veracity  of  our  faculties."  This  is 
departure  from  the  critical  philosophy  in  one  of  its  most 
characteristic  features.  Time  does  not,  like  a  pleasure  or 
a  grief,  cease  when  we  cease  to  be  conscious  of  it ;  space 
spreads  out  its  co-existences  whether  there  are  eyes  that 
behold  them  or  no.  Professor  Caird  thinks  it  most  absurd, 
on  Kantian  principles,  to  suppose  the  forms  of  consciousness 
to  represent  things  as  they  are.  Of  course  it  is,  for  on 
Kantian  principles  what  seems  beyond  me  is  thrown  out 
from  within  me ;  and  belief  in  its  reality  can  only  follow 
1  Sttidy  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  69. 


KNOWLEDGE  289 

from  illusion.  Not  thus  with  Dr.  Martineau,  to  whom 
space,  while  as  to  its  apprehension  a  priori,  is  yet  empiri- 
cally real :  and  the  categories  that  organize  the  world 
within  him  are  mental  presentations  of  relations  that  pre- 
vail around  him. 

This  criticism  we  will  pursue  no  further.  While  accept- 
ing Kant's  psychology  in  its  more  general  features,  we  see 
on  what  line  of  cleavage  he  yet  departs  from  him,  and  the 
position  that  he  gains  from  which  to  repudiate  his  agnos- 
ticism. Kant  finds  no  exit  by  which  thought  can  go  out 
into  relation  with  the  outer  world ;  to  Dr.  Martineau  a 
door  is  ever  open.  Kant  draws  his  philosophy  wholly 
from  within :  that  fields  blossom  or  stars  burn  is  without 
significance  to  his  speculation.  Dr.  Martineau  goes  out 
into  the  universe,  seeking  light  as  to  its  mystery  in  its  laws 
and  forces.  Kant,  because  of  the  assumed  dissonance  of 
the  world  of  consciousness  with  the  realities  of  things,  can 
have  no  dealing  with  the  latter;  Dr.  Martineau,  from  their 
assumed  harmony,  construes  the  latter  by  principles  drawn 
out  of  the  former.  The  thesis  that  the  senses  show  things 
as  they  are  cannot  indeed  be  proven;  but  the  ''  bona  fides 
of  our  intuitive  witnesses "  which  the  unphilosophical 
world  accepts,  he  though  a  philosopher  accepts  also ;  and 
assured  through  this  that  he  has  access  to  "  fellow  beings 
and  an  external  scene,"  he  feels  himself  within  reach  of 
"  other  truth  than  the  mere  self-consistency  of  our  ideas ;  " 
and  that  "  our  judgments  may  be  tested  by  the  agreement 
of  their  affirmed  relation  with  the  real  one."  ^ 

11.  But  allow  that  we  have  found  our  way  out  of  the 
prison-house  of  idealism,  and  have  come  into  the  presence 
of  objects  "  not  made  by  our  consciousness,"  still  the  prob- 
lem of  knowledge  is  not  settled.  Grant  that  the  world  we 
contemplate  is  not  an  illusion,  can  we  affirm  that  we  see  it 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  75. 
19 


290  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

rightly?  I  cannot  get  past  the  fact  that  between  the  sub- 
ject and  the  object  of  knowledge  there  must  be  "  copart- 
nership ;  "  and  that  the  aspect  in  which  it  will  be  presented 
to  me  will  depend  not  alone  on  what  it  is,  but  also  on  what 
I  am.  Were  I  a  dog,  it  would  be  a  dog's  world  that  I 
should  know;  were  I  an  angel,  an  angel's  world.  As  I  am 
a  man,  my  world  must  be  a  man's  world,  neither  less  nor 
more.  The  point  of  contention,  of  course,  is  as  to  the 
man's  world.  To  the  dog  my  account  of  the  world,  could 
he  understand  it,  might  seem  very  exaggerated ;  to  the 
angel,  very  inadequate :  yet  within  my  human  range  may 
it  not  be  true?  The  question,  though  very  interesting, 
were  hardly  vital,  were  it  not  for  the  dual  aspect  in  which 
my  world  comes  before  me.  As  I  contemplate  it,  it  is  not 
merely  a  scene  of  fleeting  appearances,  but  is  construed  in 
the  relations  of  cause  and  effect,  finite  and  infinite,  that 
which  appears  and  that  which  is.  The  spiritual  factors 
here,  however,  encounter  objection  from  a  prevalent  em- 
piricism which  is  not  lightly  to  be  put  by.  Its  objection  is 
commonly  put  forth  in  the  doctrine  of  the  relativity  of  knowl- 
edge, in  an  examination  of  which  Dr.  Martineau  meets  it. 

This  doctrine  is  probably  far  less  frequently  doubted 
than  the  conclusion  that  is  drawn  from  it.  Its  meaning, 
stated  in  its  fulness,  is  that  only  as  man  comes  into  rela- 
tion with  the  universe  can  he  know  it.  As  thus  stated,  it 
wears  no  bodeful  look ;  yet  it  is  seized  upon  by  scientists 
like  Huxley  and  theologians  like  Mansel  as  barring  away 
from  that  higher  knowledge  which  man  has  ever  striven 
most  zealously  to  win.  After  all  your  brave  speculations, 
say  they,  it  is  only  the  relative  you  can  know.  Granted ; 
but  precisely  what  does  this  signify?  To  Dr.  Martineau, 
instead  of  implying  a  doom  of  ignorance,  the  doctrine  of 
relativity  has  seemed  to  set  forth  the  very  law  by  which 
knowledge  is  won.  Gaining  knowledge  is  establishing  re- 
lations.    Telling  me,  therefore,  that  I  know  only  the  rela- 


KNOWLEDGE  291 

tive  is  simply  telling  me  that  I  do  not  know  what  I  do  not 
know.  But  we  are  told  that  the  implication  is  that  we  can- 
not know  the  absolute;  but  what  is  that?  The  absolute  is 
the  unrelated.  The  doctrine,  then,  comes  to  this,  that 
with  that  with  which  I  cannot  be  related  I  cannot  enter 
into  relation.  Further,  if  I  could  become  related  with  it, 
then  ipso  facto  it  would  become  related  with  me  ;  and  then 
it  would  cease  to  be  absolute.  That  I  cannot  be  related 
with  the  unrelated  is  undoubtedly  true ;  but  what  knowl- 
edge this  truth  shuts  me  away  from  it  is  not  easy  to  see. 
To  know  the  absolute  would  imply  knowing  without  the 
condition  of  knowledge,  —  seeing  without  light,  hearing 
where  there  is  no  sound,  breathing  and  living  and  moving 
in  vacuo,  —  the  aim,  not  of  sane,  but  of  insane  ambition. 
My  vision  of  reaHties  no  doubt  a  deeper  wisdom  might  im- 
prove ;  and  under  the  scrutiny  of 

"  the  crowning  race 
Of  those  that  eye  to  eye  shall  look 
On  knowledge," 

they  may  seem  inadequate  enough ;  yet  they  may  be 
something  other  than  ignorance  hopeless  and  entire.  The 
ancient  Gaul,  peering  over  the  water,  saw  banks  of  fog  for 
the  most  part  ;  yet  through  their  rifts  gleamed  now  and 
then  a  crag  which  revealed  to  him  England,  —  not,  indeed, 
the  England  of  the  geographer  and  the  geologist,  but  an 
England  that  did  at  least  interrupt  the  vacancy  of  ocean ; 
an  England,  too,  of  which  his  descendants  were  destined 
to  know  much,  yet  of  which,  after  whatever  conquests  of 
knowledge,  there  should  be  ever  a  measureless  residuum 
unknown. 

This  may  seem  a  summary  way  of  disposing  of  an  ob- 
jection so  frequently  met,  and  the  courtesy  of  debate  may 
require  that  we  look  a  little  further.  Of  the  two  forms  of 
knowledge  which  the  intuitionalist  claims,  the  empiricist  is 


292  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

willing  to  allow  only  one.  When,  therefore,  against  the 
apparent  and  phenomenal,  the  intuitionalist  places  the  real 
and  the  causal,  he  opposes  the  objection  that  we  can  know 
only  the  relative.  The  pertinence  of  this  objection  is  the 
point  to  consider.  Is  the  assumption  of  other  than  em- 
pirical knowledge,  knowledge  through  the  intellectual  as 
through  the  perceptive  faculties,  made  untenable  by  the 
law  of  relativity?  Of  course  knowledge  of  the  thing  in 
itself — of  nature  in  itself,  soul  in  itself,  God  in  himself  — 
we  may  not  claim ;  for  the  phrase  is  coined  to  denote  that 
which,  though  in  the  "  sphere  of  being,"  is  not  in  the 
"  sphere  of  thought ;  "  and  of  which,  therefore,  knowledge 
cannot  be  assumed  without  a  manifest  contradiction.  But 
why  may  not  the  intellectual  faculties  do  their  work  under 
the  law  of  relativity,  establishing  relations  in  the  realm  of 
the  supersensible,  as  the  perceptive  faculties  in  the  realm 
of  the  sensible?  This  the  intuitionalist  strenuously  claims, 
surrendering  without  ceremony  the  pretence  of  knowing 
things  out  of  relation  ;  but  maintaining,  in  Dr.  Martineau's 
language,  that  the  "  relativity  of  cognition  imposes  upon 
us  no  forfeiture  of  privilege,  no  humiliation  of  pride,"  and 
that  "  there  is  not  any  conceivable  form  of  apprehension 
from  which  it  excludes  us."  A  little  further  we  will  quote 
him :  "  The  intellectual  relations  into  which  different 
natures  may  enter  with  a  given  object  may  be  more  or 
fewer ;  and  the  remembrance  of  the  paucity  open  to  us 
and  the  numbers  that  may  be  out  of  reach,  though  within 
the  range  of  richer  capacities,  is  fitted  to  adapt  our  temper 
to  our  place :  but  to  dispense  with  all  intellectual  relations 
in  the  act  of  intellection  can  be  no  object  of  ambition  to 
any  waking  man  :  the  very  statement  is  like  one  of  the 
senseless  knots  of  some  nightmare  dream."  ^ 

Dr.  Martineau  points  out  what  may  often  be  forgotten, 
that  the  law  of  relativity  must  apply  to  all  our  faculties, 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  113. 


KNOWLEDGE  293 

not  a  part  of  them  only;   and  that  all  must  share  in  the 
limitations  it  implies.     If  because  of  it  I  must  distrust  my 
intellectual  apprehensions,  I  should  likewise  be  doubtful  of 
my  sensible  perceptions.      Eyes  and  ears  are  under  the 
sovereignty  of  this  law  as  really  as  the  intuitions  of  the 
reason.     The  misgiving,  therefore,  with  which,  because  of 
this  law,  I  regard  the  latter  should  weaken  my  confidence 
in  the  former ;   and  the  confidence  which,  notwithstanding 
this  law,  I  feel  in  the  former  should  brace  my  assurance  of 
the  latter.     The  man  of  science  believes  in  eyes  and  ears, 
notwithstanding  relativity ;  why  then  so  doubtful  of  our  in- 
tellectual cognitions  because  of  it?     But  does  not  philoso- 
phy deal  with  the  ultimates  of  thought?      Indeed  it  does; 
but  how  in  doing  so  it  necessarily  departs  from  the  law  of 
relativity  is  not,  from  our  present  point  of  view,  apparent. 
Contemplating  the  supersensible  on  the  one  side  as  the 
sensible  on  the  other,  man  may  receive  according  to  his 
measure,  which   is    precisely  what   the   law    of  relativity 
allows.      The    philosopher    indeed    tells    of    infinite    and 
eternal,  as  the  man  of  science  tells  of  the  indestructibility 
of  matter,  the  indestructibility  of  force,  infinite  time,  space, 
power.     Herbert  Spencer  declares  both  orders  of  concep- 
tion inconceivable,  and  we  may  grant  them  so.     This  fact, 
however,   does    not   prevent   our   establishing    under  one 
as  under  the  other  those  ever  widening  relations  which 
progressive  knowledge  implies.     The  truth  is  that  to  the 
mind  as  to  the  eye  it  is  given  to  discern  in  miniature  what 
may  not  be  grasped  in  immensity.     There  is  given  me  just 
a  point  of  light,  and  I  tell  of  Jupiter  or  Sirius.     There  is 
an  image  bounded  by  the  periphery  of  my  retina,  but  it 
bears  in  upon  me  the  sweep  of  the  Milky  Way.     So  while 
I  can  receive  space  and  time  and  power  only  according  to 
the  measure  of  my  faculty,  it  is  given  me  to  perceive  that 
the  measure  of  my  faculty  is  not  the  measure  of  them. 
Empirical  observation  alone  can  affirm  what  it  can  itself 


294  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

embrace:  space  enough  for  the  stars  to  float  in,  time 
enough  for  whatever  record,  power  equal  to  what  power  is 
seen  to  accomplish;  but  such  measured  language  ex- 
presses the  mind  of  no  man;  and  the  empiricist,  off  his 
guard,  will  use  the  dialect  of  the  a  priori  philosopher. 
Within  him  is  a  certitude  that  the  space  that  enfolds 
the  stars  has  no  boundary  beyond  them,  and  that  the 
stream  of  power  that  flows  before  him  is  no  measure  of 
the  fountain.  The  analogy  may  be  suggestive  rather  than 
exact;  let  it  stand,  then,  for  what  it  suggests,  viz.,  that  the 
measure  of  our  receiving  is  not  the  measure  of  our  appre- 
hending. The  cause  that  works  its  effects  before  me, 
meeting  the  causal  principle  within  me,  becomes  the 
miniature  of  a  universal  causality.  Without  that  prin- 
ciple, it  were  but  a  sensible  appearance,  limited,  fleeting, 
isolated ;  meeting  that  principle,  it  is  seen  to  be  a  mani- 
festation of  the  ever-constant  and  universal. 

Another  form  of  the  agnostic  doctrine  is  presented  in 
the  Comtean  dictum  that  all  we  know  is  phenomena.  To 
which,  in  Dr.  Martineau's  philosophy,  the  obvious  reply 
is  that  without  noiinicna  we  cannot  know  phenoriiena. 
Were  it  laid  down  that  we  can  know  nothing  witJiout 
phenomena,  the  doctrine  would  be  indubitable.  Until 
appearances  are  offered  I  suspect  no  realities ;  until  ef- 
fects are  seen  I  suspect  no  causes.  The  converse,  also, 
with  slight  modification  of  language,  can  be  maintained. 
Grant  that  the  initial  awakening  is  with  effects,  they  are  yet 
only  fortuitous  events  till  I  discern  a  cause  in  relation  with 
them ;  and  appearances  are  without  meaning  till  I  see 
them  on  a  background  of  reality.  These  correlates  Dr. 
Martineau  likens  to  the  Siamese  twins,  always  met  together, 
and  not  to  be  separated  without  the  destruction  of  both. 
In  short,  to  know  one  thing  we  must  needs  know  two 
things :  knowing  only  phenomena,  we  know  nothing.  Till 
I  see  a  background  I  discern  no  foreground ;  a  dynamic 


KNOWLEDGE  295 

without  a  static,  the  finite  without  the  infinite,  matter  with- 
out spirit,  effect  without  cause,  —  of  these  how  is  concep- 
tion possible?  "Mental  action  is  dualistic,  not  monistic." 
In  his  critique  of  Mansel,  Dr.  Martineau,  treating  of  these 
correlates,  says :  "  They  come  into  existence  before  our 
thought  together,  and  have  their  living  meaning  only  in 
pairs;  one  of  the  two  giving  us  the  constant  and  ontologi- 
cal  ground,  the  other  the  phenomenal  manifestation.  The 
attempt  to  think  away  the  finite  from  the  presence  of  the 
infinite,  or  vice  versa,  must  inevitably  fail;  and  of  the 
two  schemes  to  which  the  attempt  gives  rise,  viz.,  that 
which  says  '  entities  only  can  be  known,'  and  that  which 
says  '  phenomena  only  can  be  known,'  both  are  to  be  un- 
hesitatingly rejected.  Two  other  possibilities  remain,  viz., 
the  Idealism  which,  treating  all  '  relation '  as  a  subjective 
economy  of  ours,  pronounces  that  we  know  neither ;  and 
the  Realism  which,  taking  relations  in  the  mind  as  ex- 
ponents of  relations  out,  decides  that  we  know  both.  It 
is  on  this  last  alone  that,  in  our  view,  a  sound  philosophy 
can  take  its  stand."  ^ 

What,  then,  is  the  explanation  of  this  doctrine  so  fre- 
quently and  so  dogmatically  put  forth  :  all  we  know  is  phe- 
nomena? This:  Of  the  two  elements  of  knowledge  which 
we  hold  all  knowing  to  imply,  that  of  the  variable  and  the 
constant,  the  phenomenal  and  that  of  which  phenomena 
are,  the  former  only,  in  the  common  meaning  of  the  term, 
is  learned ;  the  latter  is  the  prime  condition  of  learning. 
The  one  I  roam  the  fields  of  space  and  time  to  gather, 
the  other  I  take  with  me  as  I  go.  Other  distinctions  are 
apparent  enough.  The  latter  from  age  to  age  is  quanti- 
tatively the  same  ;  the  former  is  infinitely  cumulative.  Of 
our  gatherings  from  the  fields  of  space  and  time  we  can 
definitely  tell :  we  can  classify  them,  analyze  them,  organ- 
ize them,  generalize  them.     Of  soul,  however,  there  are 

^  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  Mol.  iii.  pp.  135-136- 


296  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

few  predicates ;  substance  defies  analysis ;  the  infinite  we 
cannot  classify.  Here  we  deal  with  that  which  comes 
before  us  only  in  our  meditations,  and  then  as  a  presence 
that  we  apprehend,  and  not  a  form  that  we  discern.  And 
of  these  contrasts  is  born  the  habit  of  regarding  knowledge 
as  of  that  only  which  we  can  learn,  accumulate,  define, 
classify;  which  we  can  record  in  histories,  build  into 
sciences,  utilize  in  our  arts,  weave  into  the  multifarious 
web  of  our  literatures.  And  here,  of  course.  Dr.  Marti- 
neau  joins  issue.  Substance,  he  maintains,  is  not  less 
really  known  because  we  cannot  analyze  it,  nor  the  infinite 
because  we  cannot  classify  it.  As  truly  as  the  sensible 
forms,  these  come  before  the  mind ;  and  are  of  all  sensible 
knowledge  the  condition.  Our  fullest  account  of  them 
may  be  brief,  but  they  pervade  our  thought  and  interpene- 
trate our  every  conception.  "  The  unity  and  simplicity 
and  unchangeableness  of  a  cognition  do  not  identify  it 
with  ignorance.  And  since  to  the  correlative  of  phenom- 
ena this  permanence  must  from  its  very  function  belong, 
and  otherwise  it  would  itself  become  phenomenal  and 
demand  its  own  permanent  behind,  any  disparagement  of 
its  intellectual  claims  on  this  ground  forgets  the  very 
conditions  of  human  knowledge."  ^ 

In  yet  another  form  is  agnostic  doctrine  brought  us  in 
the  teachings  of  Herbert  Spencer.  Certain  noumena  he 
also  recognizes,  as  Cause  and  Power.  These  are  implied 
alike  in  our  scientific  and  in  our  religious  conceptions. 
They  introduce  us,  however,  not  to  a  reality  we  can  know, 
but  to  a  reality  impossible  to  be  known.  His  ultimate  truth, 
climbed  to  by  whatever  stairway  of  thought,  is  the  Unknow- 
able. From  the  borders  of  phenomena  he  looks  out,  not 
upon  a  blank,  but  upon  a  mystery.  Over  against  the  relative 
he  meets  an  absolute  the  existence  of  which  he  must  con- 
fess, but  knowledge  of  which  is  impossible.     If  he  simply 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  122. 


KNOWLEDGE  297 

meant  that  it  cannot  be  fully  known,  known  as  we  know 
the  forms  around  us,  or  as  the  truths  we  inductively  es- 
tablish, he  would  be  in  accord  with  the  seers  and  bards 
and  prophets  from  Isaiah  to  Tennyson.  This,  however, 
is  not  his  meaning.  He  would  rather  maintain  that  be- 
yond knowing  that  it  is,  we  have  no  possible  knowledge 
of  it.  That  it  is,  we  may  affirm  with  certainty ;  what  it 
is,  we  have  no  faculty  to  tell. 

Dr.  Martineau  raises  the  question  whether  this  is  a  "  ten- 
able distinction."  "  Is  it  possible,"  he  asks,  "  to  have  as- 
surance of  a  real  existence,  which  yet  remains  to  the  end 
an  utter  blank?  Do  we  know  the  fact  by  a  vacuum  in 
thought,  or  by  a  thought  itself?  If  the  former,  how  can  a 
subjective  nothing  tell  us  of  an  objective  something?  If 
the  latter,  how  can  there  be  a  thought  with  nothing  think- 
able?"^ And  with  all  his  carefulness  of  thought  and  all 
his  skill  of  expression,  Mr.  Spencer  does  not  save  himself 
from  inconsistency.  This  Unknowable  he  describes  as  a 
"  Power."  A  Power?  —  if  he  knows  it  to  be  this,  then  it  is 
not  wholly  unknowable.  But  of  this  Power  he  has  the 
courage  to  shape  affirmations.  It  is  "  eternal;  "  —  if  eter- 
nal, then  not  temporal.  It  is  "omnipresent;"  —  then  it 
is  never  absent.  It  is  one ;  —  then  not  many.  It  is  the 
cause  of  all  phenomena ;  —  then  not  itself  an  effect.  His 
language  is  not  only  that  of  affirmation,  but  also  that  of 
differentiation.  Dr.  Martineau  finds  this  "  hst  of  predi- 
cates," though  "  scanty  indeed  when  measured  by  the 
requisites  of  religion,  too  copious  for  the  plea  of  nes- 
cience." And  he  adds,  "  Wherever  I  can  distinguish,  there 
I  know ;  and  do  I  not  distinguish  this  'absolute'  from  all 
that  is  related  to  it,  and  thus  get  it,  as  counter  term,  into 
relative  apprehension?  Is  it  not,  among  noumena,  differ- 
ent from  Space,  from  Time,  from  Substance?  If  I  can  say 
all  these  things  about  it,  it  is  no  longer  competent  to  me 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  124. 


298  JAMES    MARTINEAU 

to  designate  it  as  the  absolutely  Unknowable.  To  know 
that  an  object  is,  yet  know  nothing  that  it  has,  is  impos- 
sible, because  contradictory.  This  negative  Ontology, 
therefore,  which  identifies  *  the  supreme  reality  '  with  total 
vacuity,  and  makes  the  infinite  in  Being,  the  zero  in 
thought,  cannot  permanently  poise  itself  in  its  precarious 
position  :  it  must  either  repent  of  its  concessions  to  real- 
ism [which  it  is  too  philosophical  to  do],  and  lapse  into 
the  Scientific  commonplace  '  all  we  know  is  phenomena;  ' 
or  else  advance,  with  what  caution  and  reserve  it  pleases, 
into  ulterior  conceptions  of  the  invisible  cause,  sufficient 
to  soften  the  total  eclipse  into  the  penumbra  of  a  sacred 
mystery."  ^ 

Thus,  reviewing  the  several  forms  of  agnostic  doctrine, 
Dr.  Martineau  finds  them  wanting.  The  Idealism  that 
insists  that  our  conceptions,  because  formed  within  our- 
selves, are  without  objective  validity,  he  finds  postulated, 
not  proven ;  and  he  renounces  it  in  the  name  of  the  "  bojia 
fides  of  our  intuitive  faculties."  For  agnostic  pretensions 
derived  from  the  doctrine  of  relativity  he  finds  no  warrant, 
since  the  establishing  of  relations  is  the  method  of  attain- 
ing knowledge,  not  a  checkmate  to  its  quest.  The  doc- 
trine that  all  we  know  is  phenomena  he  finds  suicidal ; 
while  the  doctrine  of  the  Unknowable,  which  teaches  that 
we  may  know  there  is  a  reality,  yet  know  nothing  about  it, 
he  finds  self-contradictory. 

Thus,  agnosticism  in  all  its  forms  failing  to  make  good 
its  pretensions,  he  comes  confidently  back  to  the  free  use 
of  his  faculties,  the  senses  reaching  into  the  world  without 
and  the  moulding  forms  within.  Through  these,  co-oper- 
ating in  his  conceptions,  he  is  given  appearance,  playing 
upon  a  deep  of  reality ;  a  stream  of  effects,  a  fountain  of 
cause  ;  a  world  of  shadows  with  a  sun  behind. 

1  Siudy  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  pp.  124-125. 


CHAPTER   II 

GOD  AND   COSMOS 

Thus  does  Dr.  Martineau  assure  himself  of  the  com- 
petency of  the  human  mind  to  attain  knowledge  that  is 
not  borne  in  through  the  senses,  and  which  cannot  be 
reached  through  inductions :  knowledge  of  the  substan- 
tive as  against  the  accidental,  of  the  real  as  against  the 
phenomenal. 

In  doing  thus,  however,  he  acts  the  part  of  a  bridge- 
builder  who  solidly  constructs  his  abutment  ere  he  throws 
his  arch.  His  aim  is  to  connect  earth  and  heaven :  to 
reach,  that  is,  on  lines  of  human  reasoning,  a  full  assurance 
of  the  reality  of  God.  These  lines  are  two,  —  a  strictly  in- 
tellectual and  a  moral ;  their  postulates  he  finds  in  the 
reason  and  the  conscience.  It  is  the  inferences  from  the 
moral  consciousness  which  stir  him  most;  and  Professor 
Upton  is  undoubtedly  right  in  regarding  this,  "with  its 
progressive  ethical  ideal  and  its  unconditional  imperative, 
as  the  main  source  of  that  form  of  theism  which  vital 
religion  always  tends  to  assume  as  men  become  civilized 
and  distinctly  recognize  the  paramount  authority  of  Con- 
science and  the  transcendent  worth  of  moral  character."  ^ 
Still,  in  no  period  in  which  man  is  capable  of  speculative 
inquiry,  can  the  vast  question  whether  it  is  possible  to 
construe  the  universe  in  relation  with  an  Intelligent 
Creator,  be  other  than  an  enthralling  one ;  and  no  one  has 
it  ever  more  enthralled  than  Dr.  Martineau.    His  contribu- 

1  The  Hibbert  Lectures,  1893,  p.  194. 


300  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

tion  to  it,  too,  is  a  unique  page.  Living  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  not  only  learned  in  its  philosophy,  but  steeped 
in  its  science,  he  has  constructed  an  argument  on  this  high 
theme,  which  prior  to  the  middle  of  our  century  would 
have  been  hardly  possible.  Of  all  his  multifarious  writings, 
too,  it  is  probably  the  crowning  page.  Though  his  thought 
ramifies  widely,  its  salient  features  may  be  shown  in  our 
answers  to  two  questions:  (I.)  Do  we  draw  from  the 
causal  idea  the  conclusion  that  there  is  an  Intelligent 
Cause?  If  so,  (II.)  Does  the  universe  in  its  intellectual 
aspects  ratify  or  discredit  this  conclusion? 

I.   The  Causal  Idea. 

I.  With  cause  as  a  fact  we  are  on  the  easiest  possible 
terms.  When  we  bring  it  seriously  before  our  thought,  how- 
ever, how  many  problems  start  up  !  In  every  manifestation 
of  cause  there  are  two  terms,  a  prior  and  a  sequent  one. 
The  latter  may  be  any  change  within  us  or  without,  and  is 
suggestive  of  little  speculation.  When  we  inquire,  how- 
ever, as  to  the  agency  that  produces  the  change,  we  take 
hold  on  one  of  the  crucial  problems  of  philosophy;  and  a 
modern  teacher  hardly  exaggerates  when  he  claims  that 
the  attitude  of  one's  mind  towards  this  problem  "  shows 
whether  he  be  idealist  or  materialist,  positivist  or  tran- 
scendentalist,  fatalist  or  believer  in  free  will,  theist  or 
atheist."  ^ 

There  are  two  prevalent  theories  of  the  origin  of  the 
causal  idea:  one  refers  it  to  experience,  the  other  to 
intuition.  The  former  maintains  that  through  the  order 
of  events  we  are  led  to  it ;  the  latter,  that  to  the  order  of 
events  we  bring  it.  From  these  theories  of  the  origin  of 
the  idea,  there  follow  two  theories  of  the  nature  of  cau- 
sality To  the  experience  philosopher,  there  is  an  antece- 
1  Francis  Bowen,  Friticeton  Review,  January-June,  1879,  p.  615. 


GOD  AND   COSMOS  3OI 

dent  followed  by  a  consequent,  and  more  than  this  he  will 
not  suffer  us  to  affirm ;  to  the  intuitionalist,  there  are  an  an- 
tecedent and  consequent  and  a  link  that  binds  them  together. 
The  one  sees  a  constant  relation;  the  other  sees  this  and 
also  an  indissoluble  bond.  These  theories  are  respectively- 
known  as  the  theory  of  pheitomena  and  of  force.  They 
have  not  the  field  entirely  to  themselves ;  but  they  alone 
require  recognition  in  the  discussion  now  before  us. 

The  phenomenal  doctrine  —  what  is  it?  In  its  modern 
form  it  dates  from  Hume;  and  in  his  writings  may  still  be 
found  its  strongest  and  most  winning  presentation.  Up  to 
his  time  the  necessary  connection  between  the  terms  of 
the  causal  relation  was  secure,  and  philosophers  reasoned 
as  common  people  talked.  The  antecedent  did  not  merely 
go  before,  it  was  efficient ;  the  consequent  did  not  merely 
follow  after,  it  was  effect.  The  emphasis  of  necessity 
should  be  felt  here.  Not  only  did  the  consequent  follow 
upon  the  antecedent,  but  it  must.  Water,  brought  into 
contact  with  heat,  not  only  will  be  converted  into  steam, 
it  must  be.  The  tides  do  not  merely  follow  the  moon, 
they  must  do  so.  There  was  held  to  be  not  merely  the 
uniformity  which  experience  shows,  but  a  necessity  that 
compelled  it.  The  two  terms  of  the  relation,  indeed,  were 
held  to  be  but  different  phases  of  a  composite  phenome- 
non. Hume,  however,  dislocated  them.  He  is  moving,  it 
should  be  borne  in  mind,  upon  lines  of  empirical  thought, 
pressing  Locke's  sensationalism  to  the  last  conclusion. 
Nothing  in  the  mind  that  was  not  first  in  the  senses, 
was  Locke's  dictum.  But,  says  Hume,  the  link  between 
phenomena,  in  which  the  causal  principle  is  supposed  to 
be  found,  is  not  offered  to  the  senses.  I  am  sensible  of 
the  wind's  blowing  and  the  leaves'  rustling,  of  the  sun's 
shining  and  the  snow's  melting;  but  an  intimate  con- 
nection through  which  one  term  follows  upon  the  other,  I 
do  not  see.     That  events  are   conjoined,  my  experience 


302  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

teaches  me ;  but  it  does  not  teach  me  that  they  are  united 
But  how  explain,  then,  the  practically  universal  conviction 
that  they  are  united?  Hume  finds  the  explanation  in  a 
habit  of  thought,  born  of  a  uniform  experience.  In  our 
experience  thunder  follows  lightning;  so  after  the  flash 
we  look  for  the  thunder;  or,  hearing  the  thunder,  we 
doubt  not  that  it  has  lightened ;  and  so  in  all  relations  in 
which  we  are  accustomed  to  meet  the  like  antecedent 
attended  by  the  like  consequent.  There  is  implied  here 
in  Hume's  reasoning,  not  a  fact  without,  but  an  illusion 
within ;  a  cohesiveness  of  ideas,  not  a  link  between  phe- 
nomena. Whatever  knowledge  we  have  is  wholly  through 
experience ;  a  priori  element  he  allows  none ;  and  expe- 
rience, while  recording  what  is,  has  no  oracle  as  to  what 
must  be.  Better  work  has  doubtless  many  times  been 
done,  but  work  has  rarely  been  better  done  than  this.  In 
the  development  of  thought  it  perhaps  was  needed,  and 
Hume  did  it  once  for  all.  Even  now,  after  a  century's 
debate,  few  who  read  him,  however  braced  by  an  antago- 
nistic philosophy,  can  be  insensible  of  the  persuasiveness 
of  his  clear  and  subtle  and  dignified  argument.  Lan- 
guage can  scarcely  tell  the  antagonism  he  provoked.  All 
our  doing  and  all  our  thinking  imply  the  union  of  the 
terms  of  the  causal  relation ;  and  dissolving  it  was,  in 
Hutcheson  Stirling's  figure,  like  "  drawing  the  linchpin 
out  of  existence."  Scepticism  could  achieve  a  no  more 
paralyzing  result  than  must  follow  a  distrust  of  the  neces- 
sary constancy  of  cause  and  effect;  and  no  wonder  men 
who  cannot  depart  from  the  lines  of  experience  still  strive 
to  reach  through  experience  that  necessary  bond,  which 
Hume's  impervious  logic  shows  that  no  experience  can 
find.  Literally  and  vividly  accepted,  Hume's  doctrine 
should  mean,  not  the  end  of  philosophy  only,  but  the 
collapse  of  science  as  well.  And  yet  how  near  at  hand 
was  the  very  possible  experience  which  should  have  in- 


GOD   AND   COSMOS  303 

clined  him  to  suspect  [if,  indeed,  he  ever  doubted]  that 
there  was  somewhat  not  embraced  in  his  speculation. 
From  his  study  where  he  meditated,  suppose  him  to 
have  gone  to  the  kitchen  where  his  cook  was  preparing 
his  dinner,  and  there  seen  the  familiar  spectacle,  a  fire 
with  water  boiling  over  it ;  and  suppose  the  cook,  not  an 
expert  in  empirical  philosophy,  to  have  spoken  of  the 
fire  as  making  the  water  boil,  emphasizing  that  necessity 
which  the  contents  of  every  teakettle  seems  to  confess  un- 
der pressure  of  212°  Fahrenheit.  "No,"  the  philosopher 
should  have  said  ;  "  you  use  language  without  discrimina- 
tion. What  you  can  affirm  is  antecedent  and  consequent : 
a  fire  and  water  boiling  over  it.  In  affirming  that  the  fire 
makes  the  water  boil  you  imply  a  necessary  bond  between 
the  two  phenomena,  which  observation  does  not  show; 
and  which  empirical  doctrine,  therefore,  cannot  allow." 
"  But,"  we  may  suppose  the  cook  to  argue,  "  the  water 
never  boils  save  when  there  is  a  fire  under  it,  and  it  al- 
ways boils  when  I  make  a  fire  under  it,  if  I  keep  it  over 
the  fire  long  enough."  "  Yes,"  the  philosopher  we  may 
suppose  to  reply,  "  no  doubt  such  is  your  uniform  ex- 
perience ;  and  that,  by  the  way,  is  the  explanation  of  the 
idea  of  cause  that  so  strongly  possesses  you.  By  long 
association  in  the  mind  the  thought  of  boiling  water  has 
come  to  suggest  that  of  heat  as  its  essential  condition ; 
and  so  by  a  very  natural  illusion  a  link  between  the  ideas 
is  mistaken  for  a  necessary  bond  between  the  phenomena." 
The  cook  had  no  doubt  marvelled  at  the  wonders  of  phi- 
losophy, and  replenished  the  fire  to  keep  the  water  boiling. 
Comte,  building  on  the  basis  of  Hume's  scepticism  his 
structure  of  Positive  Philosophy,  extended  the  influence  of 
his  master,  if  he  did  not  add  to  the  significance  of  his 
teaching,  Hume  was  no  scientist;  by  the  keenest  of  meta- 
physical arguments  he  discredited  the  grounds  of  meta- 
physics.    Comte  was  no  metaphysician,  but  was  eminent 


304  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

in  science ;  and  he  had  both  the  strength  and  the  weakness 
of  an  exclusively  scientific  mind.  Facts  he  wanted,  and  he 
had  the  genius  to  gather  them  and  to  organize  them.  At 
the  same  time,  speculation  was  peculiarly  offensive  to  him. 
Hume's  teachings  voiced  an  antipathy  he  could  not  have  ut- 
tered so  persuasively,  and  he  requited  the  service  he  found 
in  them  by  making  science  their  custodian.  His  compre- 
hensive dictum  was,  "  All  we  know  is  phenomena;  "  and 
in  the  letter  that  he  sends  us,  he  allows  no  reading  between 
the  lines.  "  Every  proposition  which  is  not  reducible,  in 
the  last  resort,  to  a  simple  statement  of  fact,  particular  or 
general,  must  be  without  real  and  intelligible  sense."  Our 
knowledge  he  severely  restricts  to  the  observed  contents 
of  space  and  time,  grouped  in  their  relations  of  succession 
and  resemblance.  While  others  talk  of  cause  and  effect, 
he,  with  his  master,  knows  only  antecedent  and  consequent. 
All  inquiry  into  causes  he  holds  to  be  utterly  futile.  Of  the 
word  "  cause,"  together  with  others  of  dynamic  import,  he 
would  reform  or  discontinue  the  use ;  and  in  his  later  writ- 
ings the  word  "  cause  "  is  consistently  avoided.  Whatever 
is  more  than  phenomena,  in  their  sensible  and  ordered 
presentation,  he  refers  to  metaphysics,  always  with  him  a 
realm  of  spectres. 

John  Stuart  Mill,  the  great  Positivist's  greater  disciple, 
explains  his  master  by  telling  us  that  it  is  "  efficient,  as 
distinguished  from  physical  causes,  that  he  rejects ;  "  that 
the  causes  he  thus  dogmatically  repudiates  are  such  as  are 
"  not  themselves  phenomena."  "  Like  other  people,"  he 
adds,  "  he  admits  the  study  of  causes  in  every  sense  in 
which  one  physical  fact  can  be  the  cause  of  another.  But 
he  has  an  objection  to  the  word  cause ;  he  will  only  con- 
sent to  speak  of  Laws  of  Succession,  and  depriving  him- 
self of  the  use  of  a  word  which  has  a  Positive  meaning,  he 
misses   the    meaning  it  expresses."  ^     In  thus  explaining 

1  Positive  Philosophy  of  Auguste  Comte,  pp.  53-54. 


GOD   AND   COSMOS  305 

and  criticising  his  master  he  tells  us  of  himself.  The  word 
"cause"  he  wishes  to  retain  "  for  the  purpose  of  distinctly 
designating  .  .  .  the  relatiofis  of  succession  which  so  far  as 
we  know  are  unconditional."  ^  On  another  page  he  tells  us 
that  when  he  speaks  of  the  cause  of  a  phenomenon  he  does 
not  "  mean  a  cause  which  is  not  itself  a  phenomenon."  ^ 
He  is  shaping  the  canons  of  inductive  research;  and  the 
causation  which  he  expounds  is,  he  tells  us,  without  preju- 
dice to  the  conception  of  efficient  cause.  Yet  it  would  be 
plain,  even  if  he  did  not  tell  us,  that  he  considers  the  re- 
vived interest  in  this  a  remarkable  illustration  of  what 
has  been  aptly  called  the  "  peculiar  zest  which  the  spirit 
of  reaction  against  modern  tendencies  gives  to  ancient 
absurdities."  ^ 

That  is  to  say,  underneath  the  various  dynamic  changes 
he  allows  no  dynamic  constant.  Heat  he  knows,  and  light, 
electricity,  magnetism ;  but  the  presence  in  the  universe 
of  a  power  of  which  these  are  manifestations,  he  has  no 
mind  to  perceive.  As  with  him,  so  also  with  his  school. 
They  tell  of  an  order  of  succession  of  which  they  have 
learned  through  observation,  but  nothing  of  a  power  which, 
since  it  is  not  revealed  through  observation,  can  only  be 
discerned  through  a  deeper  faculty.  The  nexus  natures, 
therefore,  which  the  intuitional  philosophy  always  main- 
tains, they  do  not  find.  In  its  place  they  affirm  —  and  it  is 
plain  that  they  can  affirm  no  more  —  an  unconditional  uni- 
formity ;  unconditional,  that  is,  as  far  as  observation  can 
show.  Mr.  Mill  speaks  in  disapproving  tones  of  the 
"  many  who  ^oliot  believe  .  .  .  that  there  is  nothing  in 
causation  but  invariable,  certain,  and  unconditional  se- 
quence." ^  The  language  of  necessity  he  does  not  like  to 
use ;  enough  for  him  that,  the  "  sum  of  conditions  "  being 
prepared,  an  event  will  occur.     According  to  this  view  the 

1  Logic,  bk.  iii.  chap.  v.  p.  209.         2  /^/^  p.  196.  ^  Ibid.  p.  209. 

*  Logic,  Harper  &  Brothers,  iS/o,  p.  522. 

20 


306  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

antecedent  is  not,  in  the  accepted  meaning  of  the  word> 
cause,  but  forerunner.  It  is  prophetic,  not  mandatory ;  it 
declares  what  is  to  be,  not  what  must  be.  The  consequent 
is  its  faithful  attendant,  not  its  necessitated  vassal.  It  is 
punctual,  and  so,  according  to  all  experience,  calculable ; 
and  this  is  all  that  we  can  say.  The  sun,  returning  from 
his  winter  solstice,  announces  that  summer  is  coining,  it 
does  not  declare  that  summer  must  come.  The  moon  gives 
intelligence  that  the  tides  are  following  her;  but  affirms  no 
necessity  that  conditions  them  unalterably  upon  her  move- 
ments. The  exploding  cannon  thunders  a  warning  of  the 
speeding  missile,  but  we  may  not  refer  to  it  an  impelling 
force.  This  last  illustration  suggests  one  employed  by  a 
distinguished  master  of  this  school  whom  Dr.  Martineau 
summons  to  judgment.  Dr.  Bain  is  displeased  with  the 
common  language  which  tells  us  that  a  flying  cannon-ball 
has  "  power  to  batter  walls,"  regarding  the  word  "  power  " 
a  "  pure  expletive  or  pleonasm  whose  tendency  is  to  create 
a  mystical  or  fictitious  agency."  Flying  cannon-ball  fol- 
lowed by  battered  wall  is  enough  for  him.^  Thus  in  the 
occurrence  of  events  all  we  can  affirm  is  a  time  order. 
Causation  is  reduced  to  a  uniform  succession,  phenomenon 
following  upon  phenomenon.  By  such  a  track,  if  track  it 
may  be  called,  it  is  vain  to  think  of  reaching  an  Ultimate 
Cause ;  and  with  phenomenalism  for  our  only  light,  a  the- 
istic  interpretation  of  the  world  is  impossible.  By  a  thread, 
however  fine,  we  may  find  our  way  out  of  whatever  laby- 
rinth at  last;  with  no  thread  at  all,  we  wander  and  go  "  no 
whither."  This  doctrine,  indeed,  leaves  upon  the  mind  the 
feeling  that  there  is  no  out  to  which  to  find  the  way,  that 
the  universe  we  have  been  wont  to  think  intelligible  is  but 
a  Cretan  maze  of  matter  and  its  properties. 

What  is  there,  then,  in  this  doctrine  that  wins  it  so  con- 
siderable a  favor?     This:   It  is  precisely  the  doctrine  which 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  155. 


GOD   AND   COSMOS  30/ 

the  scientist  can  safely  work  by.  The  succession  of  phe- 
nomena, and  the  fact  that  they  are  ahvays  calculable,  are  all 
he  needs  to  know;  and  beyond  this,  on  scientific  lines,  it  is 
futile  to  inquire.  That  atom  acts  on  atom  or  body  on  body, 
we  may  believe ;  but  he  has  no  scientific  need  to  ask  or 
warrant  for  believing.  There  is  also  no  denying  the  fact 
that  considerations  of  ultimate  cause  have  not  gone  well 
with  scientific  investigation  ;  that,  dominating  the  mind  de- 
voted to  science,  they  have  had  a  vitiating  influence.  The 
scientific  thinker  is,  therefore,  only  to  be  commended  for 
holding  fast  to  the  canons  by  which  scientific  work  is  done 
and  taking  cognizance  of  no  others.  In  recent  years,  how- 
ever, he  not  only  has  held  fast  to  his  own  canons,  but  he 
has  tried  to  make  them  canons  for  all  thinkers.  Hence  his 
conflict  with  the  metaphysician  and  the  theologian.  For, 
however  the  unconditional  sequence  of  events  may  satisfy 
the  demands  of  science,  it  really  satisfies  no  mind :  the 
august  question  of  cause  is  too  obtrusive  to  be  put  by. 
The  empiricist,  just  a  little  off"  his  guard,  finds  it  difficult  to 
be  true  to  his  empiricism,  but  in  his  use  of  language  often 
betrays  a  haunting  sense  of  that  which  his  empiricism 
should  make  it  impossible  for  him  to  say.  Dr.  Martineau 
has  collected  numerous  examples  of  this, —  expressions 
natural  enough  in  themselves,  but  absurdly  contradictory 
of  the  empirical  standards  of  the  minds  that  coined  them.^ 
Given  a  theory  which  does  violence  to  a  natural  faith  of 
the  intellect,  and  pen  or  lips  will  rarely  fail  of  its  betrayal. 

There  is  another  consideration  that  gives  this  doctrine 
favor.  It  is  the  aim  of  the  thinker  to  find  a  working  prin- 
ciple of  thought  which  he  may  safely  use  in  dealing  with 
all  possible  problems,  he,  of  course,  being  the  judge  as  to 
what  problems  are  possible.  The  proof  of  a  path  is  not 
alone  its  easy  entrance,  but  also  the  jungle  into  which  it 
leads.     There  are  those  to  whom  the  speculations  of  meta- 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  pp.  153-154.    Also  Seat  of  Authority,  pp.  23-24. 


308  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

physics  are  but  a  jungle,  and  who  therefore  put  up  at  the 
entrance  of  the  paths  leading  into  them,  No  passage  here. 
That  is  to  say,  they  withhold  an  interpretation  that  may 
seem  suitable  for  a  particular  order  of  phenomena  by  rea- 
son of  the  mazes  into  which  it  may  conduct  them.  When 
Mill's  Logic  first  appeared,  his  friend,  W.  B.  Carpenter, 
calling  attention  to  a  passage  in  which  he  defines  the 
"  cause  of  a  phenomenon  to  be  the  antecedent,  or  the  con- 
currence of  antecedents,  upon  which  it  is  invariably  and 
unconditionally  consequent,"  ^  pointed  out  that  "  when  this 
assemblage  of  antecedents  is  analyzed,  it  is  uniformly  found 
resolvable  into  two  categories,  which  may  be  distinguished 
as  the  dynamical  and  the  material ;  the  former  supplying 
\\\Q  force  ox  power  to  which  the  change  must  be  attributed, 
whilst  the  latter  affords  the  conditions  under  which  that 
power  is  exerted."  Mr.  Mill  replied  that  the  distinction 
was  "  one  of  metaphysics,  not  of  logic."  ^  Certainly  he  had 
easy  warrant  for  holding  his  logic  apart  from  metaphysics ; 
any  careful  thinker  would  do  that.  Knowing  a  little  of  Mr. 
Mill,  however,  we  can  see  how  the  force  of  the  eminent 
scientist  may  at  once  have  suggested  to  him  the  jungle, 
the  intellectual  perils  of  which  had  led  Comte  to  expurgate 
the  very  word  from  his  vocabulary.  We  may  prefer  to  see 
one  plunge  into  the  jungle,  doubting  not  that  he  may  find  his 
way  through  at  last.  Yet  to  Mill  and  his  school  the  jungle 
has  that  impenetrable  look  that  forbids  the  plunge ;  and 
beyond  question  they  can  tell  of  many  a  brave  intellect 
that  has  been  hopelessly  entangled  there.  Two  men  were 
once  somewhat  warmly  discussing  a  problem  of  thought, 
when  one  reminded  the  other  of  the  dubious  consequences 
to  which  his  doctrine  would  lead  him.  "  Consequences  !  " 
replied  the  friend  ;  "  talk  to  me  of  consequences  !  I  will 
go  to  hell  for  the  consistency  of  my  intellect !  "     The  calm 

^  Loffic,  Harper  &  Brothers,  1870,  bk.  iii.  chap.  v.  p.  204. 
2  Nature  and  Matt,  p.  350. 


GOD  AND   COSMOS  309 

rejoinder  was,  "  When  I  find  my  thought  leading  me  in  that 
direction,  I  will  revise  my  premises."  On  thought's  battle- 
field many  a  warrior,  fearless  and  true,  shall  be  found  in 
like  manner  prudent.  The  jungle  we  now  come  to,  and, 
taking  counsel  of  our  courage  rather  than  our  prudence, 
we  will  dare  the  plunge. 

What,  however,  we  call  the  jungle  may  not  be  such  to 
all :  the  metaphysics,  to  a  Comte  or  Mill  so  hopeless,  to  a 
Martmeau  may  look  garden-like  and  clear.  All  the  ex- 
perience on  which  the  empiricist  builds,  the  intuitionalist 
may  also  have ;  but  he  combines  it  with  data  peculiarly 
his  own,  without  which  philosophy  were  an  impossibility, 
an  absurdity  to  him.  The  eye  that  sees  antecedent  and 
consequent  he  holds  to  be  not  the  eye  that  sees  cause ; 
and  when  he  finds  cause  the  issue  of  an  empirical  argu- 
ment it  wears  to  him  an  alien  look.  It  is  apt,  too,  to 
suggest  to  him  a  native  and  a  priori  conviction,  which  the 
sturdiest  empiricism  may  find  it  hard  to  suppress,  and 
which  has  stolen  into  the  argument  to  the  enrichment  of 
its  conclusion  and  the  confusion  of  its  logic.  Or,  if  not 
this,  he  is  sure  to  find  it  cut  down  to  an  empirical  signifi- 
cance ;  and  he  is  likely  to  approve  the  stalwart  consistency 
of  a  Comte,  who  rejects  a  name  when  the  conception  for 
which  it  stands  is  not  provided  for  in  the  cardinal  postu- 
lates of  doctrine,  and  to  be  critical  of  those  who,  like  Mill, 
retain  the  name  while  they  eviscerate  its  meaning.  The 
cause  of  which  the  empiricist  tells,  "  invariable  ante- 
cedence," "  sum  of  conditions,"  and  whatever  else,  is  no 
cause  at  all  to  him,  only  the  outward  and  sensible  method 
by  which  the  cause  accomplishes  its  work.  His  cause 
is  not  a  condition,  but  an  agent ;  not  a  means,  but  a  power 
that  uses  means.  But  this,  while  its  manifestations  may 
be  plain  to  the  senses,  can  in  itself  only  be  known  through 
intuitive  discernment. 

We  here  come  to  a  view  of  causation  with  which  every 


310  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

modern  discussion  of  it  must  settle  before  proceeding  far, 
that  of  Kant.  Hume,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  previous 
chapter,  found  in  antecedent  and  consequent  only  a  pair 
of  uniformly  related  experiences  ;  the  causal  link  between 
them  he  did  not  find ;  and  in  this,  as  an  empiricist,  he  was 
true  to  the  canon  of  his  thought.  In  the  supposed  argu- 
ment with  his  cook  we  may  think  the  cook  to  have  the 
better  side;  yet,  speaking  strictly  from  experience,  the 
philosopher  is  right :  all  the  senses  take  note  of  is  fire  and 
boiling  water.  And  now  Kant :  The  events  that  pass  be- 
fore us,  whether  in  nature  or  in  human  life,  we  learn  only 
from  experience ;  through  the  senses  they  enter  into  us. 
But,  entering  into  us  through  the  senses,  the  mind  meets 
them  with  certain  elements  of  knowledge  which  it  contrib- 
utes out  of  its  own  nature  as  mind ;  and  of  these  elements 
the  idea  of  cause  is  one.  In  the  act  of  giving  our  experi- 
ences intelligible  construction  it  brings  this  to  them.  The 
idea  is  not  before  the  mind  until  the  experiences  are 
offered ;  but  it  comes  at  their  summons.  Every  event 
must  have  a  cause ;  so  says,  not  experience,  which  were 
incapable  of  an  affirmation  so  sweeping,  but  the  mind 
uttering  its  own  oracle.  With  this  dictum  an  inwrought 
principle  of  its  constitution,  it  meets  and  organizes  our 
otherwise  fugitive  and  chaotic  experiences.  This  view  Dr. 
Martineau  reflects  when  he  speaks  of  causality  as  the 
"  noumenal  interpretation  of  empirical  existence."  Be- 
tween him  and  Kant,  however,  there  is  this  important 
difference  to  which,  though  pointed  out  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter,  we  can  but  once  more  recur :  While 
Kant,  according  to  the  genius  of  his  system,  holds  the 
causal  principle  only  subjectively,  regarding  the  causal 
nexus  as  necessary  to  the  intelligibleness  of  our  concep- 
tions, but  refusing  to  go  out  beyond  them,  Dr.  Martineau 
finds  it  a  subjective  counterpart  of  what  is  objectively  true. 
While  Kant  finds  our  conceptions  moulded  by  the  causal 


GOD   AND   COSMOS  311 

category,  and  so,  while  necessarily  true  to  us,  not  necessarily 
true  to  things,  Dr.  Martineau  finds  in  the  causal  category 
a  discernment  of  a  nexus  between  the  events  which  are  the 
data  of  our  conceptions.  The  former  says,  Our  intelligi- 
ble world  is  organized  by  causal  relations ;  the  latter,  The 
world  is  intelligible,  first,  because  a  causal  principle  rules 
it,  and,  secondly,  because  in  man  is  an  eye  that  discerns 
that  principle.  Without  the  latter  the  scene  I  look  upon, 
however  related  part  with  part,  were  unintelligible  because 
incoherent  to  inc ;  without  the  former  I  should  have 
within  me  only  a  fictitious  impression  of  a  relation  that 
does  not  prevail  without  me.  As  Dr.  Martineau  expounds 
the  doctrine,  it  gives  to  events  an  orderly  relation  which 
the  senses  lay  hold  upon ;  but  it  links  them  by  a  causal  tie 
which  the  mind  perceives  intuitively.  Its  distinguishing 
feature  is  the  mental  discernment  of  a  dynamic  equal  to 
whatever  change.  It  does  not  tell  where  the  real  seat 
of  change  may  be ;  that  must  be  sought  through  obser- 
vation ;  but  having  found  it,  the  dynamic  bond  between 
it  and  the  phenomenon  that  is  conditioned  upon  it  is 
avouched  to  us  a  priori. 

Thus  do  the  pheiiomejtal  and  the  dynamic  theories  of 
causation  stand  before  us.  The  one  relies  wholly  upon 
empirical  observation ;  the  other  makes  no  quarrel  with 
observation,  but  rests  ultimately  on  a  dictum  which  the 
mind  puts  forth  a  priori.  The  one  identifies  cause  with 
invariable  antecedence ;  the  other  maintains  a  constant 
dynamic.  On  which  side  is  the  weightier  reason  compari- 
son only  can  show.  Here  we  come  more  directly  on  the 
trail  of  Dr.  Martineau's  thought. 

Dr.  Martineau  opens  his  presentation  of  the  dynamic 
theory  by  calling  attention  to  the  necessity  which,  in  all 
minds  not  preoccupied  by  a  countervailing  theory,  cau- 
sality seems  to  involve.  "  The  blow  of  the  steam-hammer 
which  welds  two  masses  of  iron,  the  combustion  of  the 


312  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

furnace  which  runs  the  metal  out  of  the  ore,  the  rush 
of  the  torrent  which  buries  a  homestead  in  gravel,  the 
gale  which  drives  the  ship  upon  the  rocks,  the  summer 
warmth  which  decks  the  earth  with  foliage  and  flowers," 
he  declares  to  be  "  hardly  reducible,  even  in  the  imagi- 
nation of  an  empirical  philosopher,  to  mere  pioneers  of 
the  phenomena  they  announce."  ^  In  the  antecedent  he 
reads  decree,  not  prophecy;  it  is  Olympian,  not  Delphian 
in  its  tone.  The  consequent  he  maintains  to  be,  not  a 
*'  new  item  of  fact,"  but  implicated  with  the  antecedent 
as  one  side  of  a  composite  phenomenon.  He  brings  the 
attitude  of  his  mind  into  strong  relief  by  a  series  of  ques- 
tions. He  asks,  "  Which  order  then  gives  the  more  rea- 
sonable account  of  our  mode  of  thinking  —  that  for  us 
causation  owes  its  'necessity'  to  customary  succession? 
or,  that  in  itself  it  owes  its  customary  succession  to  its 
necessity?  In  other  words.  Is  our  belief  in  causation 
identical  with  our  belief  in  Law?  or  with  our  belief  in 
Power?  or,  to  vary  the  expression  once  more,  does  it 
mean  belief  in  the  uniformity  of  nature?  or  in  the  deriva- 
tive origin  of  phenomena?  "  ^  This  latter  alternative  we 
may  cling  to  as  the  most  characteristic,  and  say  that  in 
Dr.  Martineau's  philosophy  cause  implies  the  "  derivative 
origin  of  phenomena."  Here  blend  two  conceptions  which 
it  is  important  that  we  discriminate.  We  may  think  of  phe- 
nomenon as  '  derived'  from  phenomenon,  or  we  may  think 
of  the  source  whence  the  phenomenal  as  such  is  '  derived.' 
The  latter  is,  of  course,  the  ultimate  of  inquiry,  in  which 
alone  religion  is  interested.  But  here  is  a  point  of  which 
it  is  well  to  take  cognizance :  while  through  the  former 
inquiry  we  seek  a  key  to  the  latter,  it  is  not  until  we 
answer  the  latter  that  we  reach  more  than  a  provisional 
answer  to  the  former.  A  Laplace,  looking  into  the  starry 
heavens  in  inquiry  as  to  their  origin,  may  find   scientific 

I  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  146.  ^  /^j/^/,  p.  j^j,. 


GOD   AND   COSMOS  313 

satisfaction  in  the  conception  of  a  fire-mist,  through  the 
interaction  of  whose  forces  those  glowing  orbs  rolled  into 
being.  But  the  final  answer  is  not  gained  until  there  is 
answer  to  the  further  question,  how  "  out  of  the  bosom 
of  eternal  rest "  originated  the  infinite  movement  which 
fire-mist  transformed  into  stars  illustrates.  This  particular 
phenomenon  I  may  proximately  explain  by  reference  to 
another;  but  the  phenomenal  as  such  I  can  only  derive 
"  from  that  which  is  other  than  phenomena."  Other  than 
phenomena,  however,  "  is  presentable  in  thought  only 
under  the  form  of  Being  or  of  Power,  of  which  the  latter 
alone  can  do  what  is  wanted."  ^  So,  then,  the  physical 
event  that  passes  before  my  observation  I  must  refer  at 
last  to  an  ultra-physical  agency.  In  these  terms  we  state 
in  advance  the  conclusion  to  w^hich  we  hope  to  come. 

Let  us  extend  our  comparison  of  the  empirical  and  the 
metaphysical  doctrines  a  little  further.  Mr.  Mill  maintains 
a  uniform  succession  of  events,  and  with  this  leaves  the 
problem  of  causality.  Dr.  Martineau  sees  this  as  clearly 
as  he,  but  looks  beyond  it.  The  cause  he  seeks  is  not 
found  until  a  principle  is  reached  which  is  not  merely 
the  occasion  of  phenomena,  but  their  producing  agency; 
and  this  principle  can  be  only  a  force  or  power.  Cus- 
tomary succession,  uniformity  of  nature,  law,  —  these  af- 
ford him  no  ultimate  account  of  anything.  They  show 
him  a  method,  but  of  efficiency  they  tell  no  tale.  Law, 
which  in  common  speech  many  are  wont  to  endow  with 
such  potentialities,  attracts  no  masses,  combines  no  mole- 
cules, darts  no  sunbeams,  hurls  no  lightning,  sends  no 
rain,  is  ultimate  account  of  no  movement  of  matter,  no 
function  of  life,  no  activity  of  mind.  Rightly  conceived, 
it  shows  only  the  how  of  things,  not  at  all  the  why ;  its 
significance  is  fully  stated  when  we  say,  Thus  works  the 
dynamic  of  the  world,  and   not  otherwise;   or,  everything 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  149. 


314  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

according  to  law,  but  nothing  by  it/  And  this  quah'fica- 
tion,  which  clears  the  way  for  a  dynamic  of  which  law 
only  declares  the  method,  leaves  to  our  inductive  inquirers 
all  they  want.  Science,  dealing  only  with  phenomena, 
reaches  its  ultimate  aim  with  the  determination  of  their 
law  of  succession,  and  whether  the  determining  principle 
is  held  to  be  the  properties  of  matter,  or  the  investigator 
may  make  his  own  the  ecstatic  cry  of  Kepler,  "  I  think 
thy  thoughts  after  thee,  O  God,"  it  is  neither  more  as- 
sured nor  less  so.  The  angel  which  Kepler  conceived 
so  to  guide  the  movement  of  the  planet  that  its  radius 
vector  should  describe  equal  areas  in  equal  times  was 
nothing  to  science ;  but  the  law  these  terms  enunciate 
was  of  measureless  significance.  It  is  an  unfaltering  con- 
stancy upon  which  science  builds,  and  with  this  assured 
the  man  of  science  works  his  problems,  leaving  it  to  others 
to  settle  whether  there  be  any  agency  in  events  beyond 
the  power  of  crucibles  and  microscopes  to  find. 

But  another  consideration.  The  uniformity  of  nature 
we  learn  only  by  experience.  But  what  we  learn  by  ex- 
perience, by  further  experience  we  may  unlearn ;  and  the 
cautious  scientist  is  likely  to  accompany  his  forecasts  with 
the  proviso,  "  no  undiscovered  fact  disturbing  my  calcula- 
tions," or,  "  the  constitution  of  things  remaining  as  it  is." 
So,  if  the  causal  principle  were  indeed  nothing  more  than 
invariable  antecedence,  then  were  it,  as  Mr.  Mill  teaches, 
empirically  learned,  with  need  of  the  ever  amended  state- 
ment which  advancing  knowledge  is  likely  to  bring  to  all 
our  empiricisms.  But  herein  is  the  very  point  at  issue. 
Dr.  Martineau's  causal  principle,  though  seen  through  uni- 
formity, is  an  efficiency.  The  uniformities  of  nature  are 
not  without  significance  in  the  study  of  causality :  we  read 

1  "  Laws  of  order  are  not  yet  causes ;  and  if  we  know  anything  of  causes, 
we  know  more  than  Laws."  From  essay, "  Is  there  an  Axiom  of  Causality .' 
Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  iii.  p.  574. 


GOD   AND   COSMOS  315 

off  from  them  a  lesson  of  method ;  we  infer  from  them,  not 
merely  an  agency,  but  a  steadfast  agency  behind  them. 
But  suppose  the  uniformities  all  away,  and  in  place  of 
order,  disorder  wherever  we  turn ;  suppose  events  fortui- 
tous, abnormal,  or  with  no  antecedent  in  sight,  should  we 
conceive  them  as  occurring  without  power?  Men  have 
believed  in  marvels  enough,  —  charm,  magic,  miracle;  the 
sick  healed  by  a  touch,  the  dead  called  from  the  grave, 
heroes  without  human  mothers,  saviours  virgin-born ;  but 
have  they  ever  believed  the  more  stupendous  miracle,  an 
event  without  producing  agency?  An  event  that  passes 
before  me  may  often  enough  seem  unaccountable,  but  it  is 
only  so  because  I  do  not  see  the  source  of  an  agency  that 
I  am  sure  is  there.  I  may  conceive  it  occult,  magical, 
supernatural,  and  thus  render  a  mistaken  account  of  it; 
but  will  it  ever  occur  to  me,  or  can  sophistry  ever  per- 
suade me,  that  no  producing  power  is  there?  This  con- 
sideration Dr.  Martineau  presses  with  great  vigor  and 
clearness.  "  What  we  learn  from  experience,  from  experi- 
ence we  may  unlearn ;  and  if  B,  which  we  had  regarded 
as  the  effect  of  A,  surprises  us  by  dispensing  with  this 
antecedent,  we  shall  have  no  difficulty  in  looking  out  for 
another  to  which  it  may  be  credited.  But,  however  long 
we  might  be  baffled  in  our  search,  would  it  ever  occur  to 
us  that  the  event  was  not  only  without  this  cause,  but 
without  any  ?  that  the  originating  power  which  was  not 
herey  was  nowhere  ?  On  the  contrary,  the  very  eagerness 
of  curiosity  which  ensues  on  our  surprise  is  but  the  pres- 
sure of  the  axiom  of  causation,  reasserting  the  derivative 
origiji  of  all  phenomena  :  we  know  the  missing  power  to 
be  somewhere;  but  where  is  it  then?  Nay,  more:  were 
phenomena  released,  not  only  from  this  order  or  that 
order,  but  from  all  perceptible  order,  and  turned  from  a 
regiment  into  a  rabble,  did  they  defy  prediction,  and 
startle  us  every  instant  like  a  flash  of  lightning  or  a  shoot- 


3l6  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

ing  star,  they  would  none  the  less  be  to  us  the  expression 
of  some  power.  .  .  .  Belief  which  would  thus  cleave  to  us 
alike  in  a  chaos  as  in  a  kosmos,  can  be  no  induction  from 
the  observed  uniformity  of  nature,  but  must  be  an  a  priori 
law  of  thought  brought  by  us  to  the  interpretation  of  the 
world."  1 

His  doctrine  concisely  summarized,  is  this  :  To  the  study 
of  nature  causahty  is  brought;  through  the  study  of  nature 
uniformity  is  found. 

In  the  foregoing  pages  the  language  of  necessity  has 
been  frequent ;  the  fact  is  that  it  is  utterly  unavoidable  in 
any  intelligent  discussion  of  causation ;  and  this  for  the 
reason  that  to  the  unsophisticated  intellect  necessity  clings 
undivorcibly  to  the  idea  of  cause,  a  fact  with  yet  further 
implications  which  we  need  to  notice.  Every  effect,  we 
say,  must  have  a  cause.  The  emphatic  word  here  is  must, 
implying  necessity  unvarying  and  absolute.  This  empiri- 
cists have  striven  hard  to  educe  from  their  doctrines ;  but 
however  ingenious  in  construction,  the  argument  which  is 
consistently  empirical  cannot  proclaim  necessity.  Through 
experience  we  may  affirm  the  results  of  experience,  and  a 
rule  of  probability  that  is  derived  from  its  oft  repetition ; 
but  beyond  this  — what?  Mr.  Mill  tells  us  that  "What- 
ever has  been  found  true  in  innumerable  instances,  and 
never  found  to  be  false  after  due  examination  in  any,  we 
are  safe  in  acting  upon  as  universal  provisionally,  until  an 
undoubted  exception  appears ;  provided  the  nature  of  the 
case  be  such  that  a  real  exception  could  scarcely  have 
escaped  our  notice ;  "^  and  this  seems  to  offer  us  the  canon 
of  inductive  inquiry  in  the  fulness  of  its  scope  and  with  its 
obvious  limitation.  But  whatever  else  it  may  provide,  the 
necessity  we  are  contemplating  is  clearly  not  within  its 
provisions.     A  provisional  necessity,  indeed,  were  a  bewil- 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  pp.  14S-149. 

2  Logic,  Harper  &  Brothers,  1870,  bk.  iii.  chap.  xxi.  p.  342. 


GOD  AND   COSMOS  317 

dering  thought.  The  truth  is  that  the  causal  apprehension 
far  outruns  any  knowledge  of  causes  given  by  experience. 
Events  I  may  meet  on  the  right  hand  and  on  the  left  of 
which  no  cause  is  discernible.  From  any  morning's  walk 
I  may  bring  home  a  score  of  observations  of  events  which 
I  cannot  set  in  order  of  causal  relation.  Do  I,  therefore, 
believe  the  events  uncaused?  Not  so.  Though  I  see  no 
cause  I  know  there  must  be  one,  —  must,  —  affirming  a 
necessity  which  the  widest  dealing  with  empirical  logic 
cannot  eradicate  from  within  me.  Where  experience  has 
no  word,  or  where,  indeed,  its  oracles  are  discredited,  this 
must  yet  dominates  my  mind.  Is  it  said  that  from  familiar- 
ity with  the  causal  relation  I  acquire  a  habit  of  mind  which 
I  carry  to  experiences  in  which  I  do  not  find  that  relation, 
and  mentally  supply  an  undetermined  antecedent,  assured 
through  my  experience  that  an  antecedent  must  be  there,  — 
interpret,  that  is,  the  chaos  in  which  occasionally  I  wander 
by  the  rules  of  the  cosmos  in  which  I  habitually  move? 
Then  is  it  necessary  to  show  that  such  account  is  true  not 
merely  of  my  mind,  educated  in  this  century  of  science, 
but  that  it  is  true  also  of  the  human  mind  in  its  origin  and 
history?  Did  that  apprehension  dawn  with  the  discovery 
of  the  relation  of  antecedent  and  consequent,  and  was  its 
growth  attained  through  repeated  observation  of  this  rela- 
tion? The  contrary  would  seem  to  be  true.  The  primi- 
tive man  lived  practically  in  a  world  of  phantasmagoria. 
The  orderly  sequences  of  events,  so  plain  to  us,  he  had  no 
eye  to  see ;  but  against  the  supposition  that  he  was  with- 
out the  causal  apprehension  his  very  superstitions  bear 
witness.  The  nereids  with  which  he  peopled  the  sea,  the 
naiads  he  found  in  the  fountains  and  streams,  the  genii  of 
forests  and  mountains,  the  demons  that  rode  on  the  storm, 
the  smiling  divinities  of  health  and  plenty,  the  fiends  of 
famine  and  of  pestilence,  all  tell  of  a  causal  sense  which 
meant  behind  events  the  presence  of  an  executing  power. 


3l8  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

The  doctrine  of  the  scientific  school  is  but  a  latter-day 
disputer  of  a  race-old  conviction.  The  conclusion  is  re- 
sistless that  the  belief  in  efficiency  behind  effect  is  not 
merely  a  well-reasoned  judgment,  but  comes  from  the  mind 
out  of  its  a  priori  store.  Here  we  find  explanation  of  the 
necessity  we  link  with  the  causal  idea :  the  mind  cannot 
conceive  the  limitation  of  its  own  principles ;  therefore  the 
causal  principle  it  must  hold  to  be  unconditional  and  uni- 
versal. Hence  to  what  it  learns  empirically  it  applies  this 
principle  as  a  constructive  rule,  doubting  it  no  more  than 
it  doubts  the  mathematics  which  it  draws  from  the  same 
source,  and  applies  with  absolute  confidence  in  their  truth. 
Every  event  must  have  a  cause,  —  no  space,  no  time,  no 
eternity,  can  negative  this  broad  affirmation. 

Thus  the  phenomenalism  of  the  scientific  school.  Dr. 
Martineau,  speaking  for  the  causal  sense,  refuses  to  indorse. 
While  the  former  maintain  only  a  succession  of  events, 
the  latter  is  obliged  to  maintain  also  the  derivative  origin 
of  phenomena.  Phenomena,  however,  can  only  be  derived 
from  a  power  that  is  other  than  phenomenal ;  a  dynamic 
constant,  behind  all  change  yet  immanent  in  it. 

Manifest  in  all  change,  yet  its  unchanging  source,  im' 
manent  in  nature,  yet  a  "  Force  behind  Nature  "  !  I  quote 
the  language  of  an  eminent  scientist,^  whose  illustration, 
too  long  to  appropriate,  I  yet  may  paraphrase.  We  enter 
some  vast  factory  and  study  its  heaving  and  bewildering 
machinery.  This  machine,  which  we  first  study,  is  plainly 
connected  with  another,  on  whose  movement  its  movement 
is  conditioned.  But  the  second  machine  we  soon  discover 
to  have  a  like  relation  with  a  third,  the  third  with  a  fourth; 
and,  having  found  the  clue,  we  may  follow  from  one  ma- 
chine to  another  throughout  an  apartment,  and  there  at 
length  find  a  belt  which  seems  to  connect  all  these  machines 
with  something  out  of  sight,  seeking  which  we  find  our- 

1  W.  B.  Carpenter,  Nature  and  Man,  p.  350. 


GOD  AND   COSMOS  319 

selves  in  another  apartment  devoted  to  different  machines 
all  connected  in  like  manner.     So  through  apartment  after 
apartment  we  find  movement  conditioned  upon  movement, 
one  machine  through  a  hundred  intermediaries  responsive 
to  another;   and  there  is  a  conceivable  order  of  mind  to 
which  this  language  should  convey  the  explanation  ;   indeed 
the  phenomenalism  we  have  reviewed  has  in  these  machines 
a  not  unfitting  illustration.     To    us,  however,  further  in- 
vestigation is  permissible,  and  passing  down  beneath  the 
factory,  we  find  a  wheel  to  whose  swift  revolutions  all  this 
complex  movement  is  due,  and  this  driven  by  a  cataract 
foaming  and  thundering  there.     The  movement  within  the 
factory  is  thus  explained  by  a  force   outside  of  it  and   yet 
immanent  within  it.     In  like  manner  to  the  intuitionalist 
the  fact  that    explains  the  complex  movement  of  nature 
is  a  force    beyond   it   or    behind  it,  yet  immanent  in  it. 
Without  the  sensible  the  supersensible  were  not  offered  to 
our  thought;  as  without  the  supersensible  the  sensible  were 
incoherent  and    unintelligible.      For  the  understanding  of 
each  and  the  hope  of  ulterior  problems  we   grasp  them 
as  correlates.     The  factory  and  the  cataract  outside  of  it, 
nature  and  the  force  behind  it,  would  be  the  one  incompre- 
hensible, the  other  never  dreamed  of,  but  for  the  relation 
in  which  we  meet  them.     Having  thus  met  them,  however, 
we  may,  if  our  minds  so  incline  us,  turn  to  the  machinery 
of  the  factory  to  study  its  adjustments,  —  nature  in    her 
countless  phenomena,  —  with  light  shed  from  a  knowledge 
of  the  source   of  its  mighty  energy ;  or  we  may  follow  up 
the  stream, — the  force  behind  nature,  —  to  the  headland 
whence  it  flows.     It  is  the  latter  enterprise  that  now  invites 
us. 

2.  But  before  we  come  to  the  consideration  of  the  "  force 
behind  nature  "  it  may  be  well  to  bestow  a  closer  scrutiny 
upon  force  in  nature.  A  few  years  ago  we  had  knowledge, 
as  we  supposed,  of  forces.     Mechanical    force  we  knew, 


320  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

gravitation,  heat,  light,  electricity,  magnetism, — we  were 
on  easy  terms  with  all  of  them.  Their  look  was  familiar; 
with  their  habits  we  were  well  acquainted ;  and  though 
they  surprised  us  now  and  then  with  some  undiscovered 
virtue,  and  though  we  could  not  tell  whence  they  came  nor 
whither  they  went,  yet  from  their  honest  appearance  and 
regular  behavior,  we  could  not  doubt  that  such  as  they 
appeared  to  be,  in  very  truth  they  were.  At  length, 
about  the  middle  of  the  century,  an  eye,  turned  upon  them, 
saw,  as  it  were,  a  little  behind  them ;  and  lo,  an  astonishing 
discovery  !  Where  we  had  supposed  was  plain  and  obvious 
dealing  with  us  was  really  an  endless  masquerade.  These 
forces  which  seemed  so  honest  were  really  of  the  nature  of 
faeries,  constantly  putting  off  their  own  and  putting  on  one 
another's  graces ;  and  all  so  deftly  done  that  though  car- 
ried on,  not  in  any  green-room,  but  on  the  very  proscenium 
of  nature,  the  most  searching  eyes,  from  Aristotle  to  Sir 
Humphry  Davy,  did  not  detect  the  secret.  The  discovery 
was  made  that  the  chemical  action  that  paints  my  portrait 
is  in  other  dress  the  familiar  agent  through  whose  smiling 
presence  I  may  use  my  eyes ;  that  the  electricity  that 
flames  and  startles,  clothed  in  different  attributes,  is  the 
servant  that  cooks  my  food,  and  that  the  unerring  pilot 
that  in  all  weathers  tells  the  sailor  what  his  bearings  are, 
is  in  other  guise  my  errand  boy,  not  like  the  nimble  Puck, 
promising  to  "  put  a  girdle  round  about  the  earth  in  forty 
minutes,"  but  stipulating  to  run  round  it  at  the  speed  of 
eight  times  in  one  minute.  This  discovery,  in  which  was 
the  potency  of  revolution,  came  too  late  for  Comte,  and  was 
young  science  when  Mill  was  mature  philosopher. 

Illustrations  of  this  truth  are  on  every  hand.  Every  one 
knows  that  hammered  iron  becomes  hot,  —  every-day  illus- 
tration of  mechanical  action  converted  into  heat.  The 
same  thing  is  seen  again  when  a  man  by  threshing  his 
hands  succeeds  in  warming  them,  or  an  Indian,  by  rubbing 


GOD   AND   COSMOS  321 

dry  sticks  together  [if  he  ever  does],  produces  fire.  The 
sailor  tells  us  that  by  the  churning  of  the  sea  in  a  storm 
the  water  becomes  warmer,  and  Professor  Tyndall  accepts 
his  testimony.  Illustration  takes  wider  range.  The  energy 
of  falling  water,  transformed  into  electricity,  lights  the 
streets  and  homes  and  shops  of  Buffalo,  does  service  by 
the  smelting  of  iron  at  her  forges,  and  drives  the  complex 
machinery  of  her  industry.  Here  at  the  beginning  is  the 
energy  of  a  falling  mass ;  it  is  converted  into  heat,  into 
electricity,  into  light,  into  mechanical  energy,  whence  it 
comes  forth  heat  again.  Every  noisome  sink-drain,  every 
swamp  from  which  malaria  rises,  every  decaying  vegetable 
or  putrefying  animal,  tells  of  chemical  action  which  is  heat 
lost  to  its  identity.  Of  light  transformed  into  chemical 
action  every  photograph  bears  witness.  Magnetism  is 
convertible  into  electricity,  electricity  into  magnetism. 
Further,  an  exact  mathematical  equivalence  prevails  here, 
so  that  the  dynamic  value  expressed  in  foot-pounds  of  one 
mode  of  energy  may  be  written  down  in  degrees  centi- 
grade of  another,  and  in  amperes  of  another. 

Strange  this  ceaseless  process  of  transformation,  which 
yields  us  "  fairy  tales  of  science "  in  comparison  with 
which  the  most  poetic  folk-lore  is  dullest  prose  !  But  are 
we  dealing  with  distinct  forces?  The  conclusion  of  science 
rather  is  that  these  are  not  several  forces,  but  only  modes 
of  Force.  They  are  manifestations,  not  essences ;  phe- 
nomena, not  dynamic  permanents.  Plurality  is  abolished  ; 
we  have  no  longer  forces,  but  Force.  The  dyjiamic  of  the 
world  is  one  ! 

But  Force,^  —  we  come  now  to  the  supreme  question, — 
what,  in  its  ultimate  essence,  is  it?      We  know  its  manifes- 


^  I  am  aware  that  the  term  preferred  in  these  days  is  "  Energy."  Having 
taken  "  Force,"  however,  from  Dr.  Carpenter's  illustration,  I  have  thought  it 
best  to  hold  on  to  it.  Further,  it  is  the  word  Dr.  Martineau  uses  through* 
out  his  discussion. 

21 


322  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

tations;  in  its  inmost  nature,  is  it  like  any  of  these?  This 
is  one  of  Dr.  Martineau's  questions.  With  the  dynamic 
permanent  before  his  mind  he  asks  :  "  Which  of  its  phases 
represent  it  most  truly?  Does  it  resemble  a  universal 
elasticity,  like  steam ;  or  a  universal  quivering,  like  light ; 
or  a  universal  conscious  mind,  like  thought  in  man?  or 
must  we  say  that  probably  it  is  like  none  of  these,  and  that 
all  its  phases  wz^represent  it?  "  ^  This  seems  a  reasonable 
question ;  but  bringing  it  to  these  manifestations  severally, 
however  you  may  press  it,  they  return  no  answer.  But 
though  severally  they  are  thus  uncommunicative,  perhaps 
through  some  grouping  of  them  we  may  attain  a  clue  to 
the  answer  that  we  seek.  These  modes  of  Force  Dr.  Mar- 
tineau  finds  it  possible  to  arrange  in  a  scale  of  higher  and 
lower.  He  says :  "  It  is  impossible,  on  looking  at  the 
faces  of  these  assembled  forces,  to  assign  the  same  rank  to 
all,  or  miss  the  traits  of  graduated  dignity  which  make 
them  rather  a  hierarchy  than  a  committee.  The  delicate 
precision  with  which  chemical  affinity  picks  its  selecting 
way  among  the  atoms,  is  in  advance  upon  the  indiscrimi- 
nate grasp  of  gravitation  at  them  all.  The  architecture 
of  a  crystal  cannot  vie  with  that  of  a  tree.  The  sentiency 
of  the  mollusk  is  at  an  immeasurable  distance  from  the 
thought  which  produces  the  Mecaniqiie  Celeste.  Hence, 
in  the  company  of  powers  that  conduct  the  business  of 
nature,  a  certain  order  of  lower  and  higher  establishes 
itself,  which,  without  settling  every  point  of  precedency,  at 
least  marks  a  few  steps  of  ascent,  from  the  mechanical  at 
the  bottom  to  the  mental  at  the  top.  All  equally  real,  all 
equally  old,  they  are  differenced  by  the  work  they  have  to 
do."  2 

The  dignity  may  be  obvious ;  but  here,  as  in  human  life, 
dignity  may  be    climbed    to  or  descended    from.     Could 

1  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  22. 

2  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  iv.  pp.  236-237. 


GOD   AND   COSMOS  323 

we  scientifically  bridge  the  gulf  between  chemical  and 
vital,  between  vital  and  mental  phenomena,  we  should 
embrace  in  ascending  and  descending  scale  all  zones  of 
terrestrial  existence  within  the  correlations  of  the  one 
dynamic,  —  the  working  idea  of  Evolution,  which  we  ten- 
tatively embrace.  Could  we  now  find  the  order  by  which 
these  correlations  succeed  one  another,  we  might  come 
through  this  to  the  manifestation  that  is  initial  to  all  the 
rest,  and  see  in  that  at  least  a  suggestion  of  the  reality 
that  it  manifests.  Did  this  order  proceed  ever  from  me- 
chanical action  up,  then  in  mechanical  action  we  should 
see  that  nearer  resemblance  ;  if  from  mind  down,  then  that 
nearer  resemblance  would  be  in  mind.  Unfortunately  for 
any  hope  in  this  direction,  however,  the  order  of  succes- 
sion can  be  made  out  in  either  direction ;  and  if  from 
mind  at  the  top  we  may  trace  the  correlations  to  mechani- 
cal action  at  the  bottom,  so  may  we  trace  them  also  in 
the  reverse  direction.  Hence  there  may  be  two  schools 
of  thought,  to  one  of  which,  mind,  and  to  the  other,  me- 
chanical action,  is  the  phenomenon  through  which  the 
causal  agency  is  earhest  manifest.  The  one  may  argue  up 
from  mechanical  action  and  the  other  down  from  mind  ;  and 
we  are  as  yet  in  no  position  to  adjudicate  between  them. 

There  is,  however,  yet  another  aspect  of  the  problem 
which  calls  for  notice.  We  have  treated  the  correlations 
as  up  the  scale  or  down ;  given  the  initial  movement  at 
either  end  of  the  scale,  are  all  forms  of  energy  then 
pledged  to  follow  from  it?  Yes,  if  the  conditions  of  all 
are  provided,  a  truth  that  carries  an  interesting  implication. 
If  we  arrange  our  scale  with  physical  force  at  the  bottom, 
and  above  it  the  chemical,  the  vital,  the  mental,  it  requires 
no  deep  insight  to  perceive  that  while  each  lower  may 
make  shift  without  the  higher,  each  higher  implies  the 
lower.  For  instance,  while  there  can  be  no  chemical 
change   without   heat,   heat  may   have   a   vast    range   of 


324  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

phenomena  without  the  conditions  of  chemical  change. 
In  a  world  of  one  substance,  as  gold,  in  which,  of  course, 
chemical  change  were  impossible,  heat  might  play  its  part 
with  only  one  order  of  function  less  than  now.  So,  while 
life  may  not  be  where  there  is  no  chemical  change,  chemi- 
cal change  may  have  vast  range  where  there  is  no  life ; 
given  the  inorganic  realm  alone,  it  will  never  promote 
itself  into  the  higher  one.  This  is  said  in  remembrance  of 
the  many  claims  of  a  way  found  open  from  the  simply 
chemical  to  the  vital,  claims  always  brought  to  confusion 
by  the  finding  that  the  "  living  thing  was  on  the  wrong  side 
to  begin  with."  Finally,  while  thought  may  imply  life  as 
its  condition,  life  may  have  a  vast  career  without  any  rela- 
tion with  thought ;  and  research  and  speculation  have 
utterly  failed  to  show  or  guess  how  the  former  can  blos- 
som into  the  latter.  It  seems  clearly  impossible,  therefore, 
to  work  the  evolution  from  the  base  up  without  a  series 
of  gifts  the  need  of  which  is  the  paralysis  of  evolution. 
Begin  at  the  top,  however,  and  with  mind  all  below  it 
is  given  by  implication.  Grant  the  presence  of  thought 
and  will,  and  be  sure  "  they  will  appropriate  vital  power; 
as  life,  once  in  possession,  will  ply  the  alembics  and  the 
test-tubes  of  its  organic  laboratory ;  and  chemical  affinity 
is  no  sooner  on  the  field  than  it  plays  its  game  among  the 
cohesions  of  simple  gravitation."  To  the  claim,  therefore, 
often  put  forth,  that  given  one  type  of  Force  we  have  with 
it  all  others,  the  answer  is  that  that  depends  on  wJdch  one ; 
a  conclusion  to  which  Dr.  Martineau  gives  utterance  when 
he  says,  "  If  all  force  is  to  be  conceived  as  One,  its  type 
must  be  looked  for  in  the  highest  and  all-comprehending 
term;  and  Mind  must  be  conceived  as  there,  and  as  di- 
vesting itself  of  some  specialty  at  each  step  of  its  descent 
to  a  lower  stratum  of  law,  till  represented  at  the  base 
under  the  guise  of  simple  Dynamics."  ^ 

1  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.   iv.   p.   600.     Also   same  vol.  pp. 
237-239- 


GOD   AND   COSMOS  325 

Thus  much,  at  last,  we  come  to  as  mere  observers  of 
the  phenomena  of  Force :  Of  these,  mind  is  the  all-com- 
prehending phenomenon.  This  indeed  is  something,  but 
let  us  take  care  not  to  magnify  it  unduly.  Still  we  are 
dealing  only  with  phenomena;  the  Power  they  represent 
cornes  as  yet  with  no  distinctness  before  our  vision. 
Though  the  supremacy  of  mind  may  be  suggested,  obser- 
vation finds  for  it  no  verification.  Still  it  is  the  phenomena 
of  the  unitary  Power  that  we  have  before  us,  not  its  ulti- 
mate nature.  Its  manifestations  are  plain,  but  its  essence 
is  still  illusive.  This  is  as  it  should  be ;  for  in  our  study 
we  have  been  using  only  the  observing  and  classifying 
faculty,  to  which,  as  already  shown,  the  reality  of  Force 
is  not  revealed.  Where  its  reality  is  given,  there,  if  any- 
where, should  its  nature  be  made  plain ;  and  here  we 
turn  from  outward  observation  to  the  testimony  of  the 
interior  man. 

In  seeking  within  myself  for  light  upon  the  ultimate 
nature  of  Force,  my  first  study  must  be  of  Force  as  it  is 
given  me  to  exercise  it.  Suppose  for  a  moment  my  only 
apprehension  of  Force  to  be  drawn  from  my  exercise  of 
it,  what  account  of  it  should  I  render?  My  various  activi- 
ties—  my  work,  study,  play  —  we  will  suppose  the  same 
as  now.  An  observer  without  community  of  nature  with 
me  would  see  in  them  no  more  than  I  see  in  the  conduct 
of  the  bee  or  the  beaver ;  and  we  can  easily  conceive  him 
to  arrive  at  some  such  theory  of  them  as  I  of  the  doings 
of  the  animals  or  insects  I  may  study.  But  however  he 
might  explain  them,  /  should  know  them  to  issue  from 
my  will.  So  far  as  other  than  automatic  or  zoological, 
this  would  inevitably  be  my  account  of  them.  Force  I 
should  know,  and  know  only,  through  the  execution  of 
my  will.  Will-directed  force,  will-causality,  —  no  other 
would  be  conceivable  by  me.  This  supposition,  however, 
while  serving  well  enough   for  a  tentative  illustration,  is 


326  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

inherently  impossible.  Of  my  own  force,  unantagonized 
by  force  other  than  mine,  I  can  know  nothing.  Were  I 
simply  passive,  the  force  that  on  every  hand  assails  me 
would  simply  stream  through  me ;  —  I  should  be  like  the 
sponge  in  the  endless  wash  of  the  sea.  So,  were  I  active, 
if  my  activities  encountered  no  resistance,  then  they  would 
be  like  sunbeams  shot  out  into  a  perfectly  transparent 
atmosphere ;  and  I  should  be  unconscious  of  effort  be- 
cause acting  through  an  unresisting  medium.  As  through 
simple  passivity  I  could  not  know  of  aught  around  me, 
so  through  unchallenged  activity  I  could  not  know  my- 
self. That  is  to  say,  through  resistance  to  my  will  is  con- 
sciousness of  it  awakened.  The  causal  power  within  me 
is  countermated  by  a  causal  power  beyond  me ;  and  to 
know  either  I  must  have  experience  of  their  antagonism. 
Now,  since  I  could  have  no  apprehension  of  causality  in 
the  universe  but  for  causality  at  home,  it  is  evident  that 
from  myself  as  a  centre  I  carry  it  abroad.  From  my  own 
experience  as  an  agent  I  gain  my  conception  of  an  agency 
everywhere.  But  cause  at  my  own  centre  is  Will ;  will- 
causality  is  all  the  causality  I  know.  The  ultimate  sig- 
nificance of  cause  beyond  me,  found  within  me  or  not 
found,  is  will.  Force,  as  an  ultimate  essence,  then,  is  Will. 
In  the  antagonism  of  self  and  not-self  there  is  simply  will 
opposed  to  will; — will  within,  expressed  in  activities  of 
body  and  brain ;  will  without,  expressed  in  the  order  of 
the  world ;  will  within,  flowing  out  in  contest  with  the 
elements,  in  the  subduing  of  nature,  in  the  creation  of  arts, 
in  the  building  of  civilization  ;  will  without,  guiding  planets, 
flashing  sunbeams,  immanent  in  chemical  combinations 
and  in  vital  functions.  Cause  in  the  sense  of  efficient 
simply  must  mean  this  to  us. 

The  form  of  argument  here,  however,  is  that  of  analogy, 
and  there  is  another,  which,  if  to  the  ordinary  mind  not 
more  persuasive,  to  the  logician  may  be  more  satisfactory. 


GOD   AND   COSMOS  327 

The  moulding  principles  of  our  knowledge,  causality  with 
the  rest,  come,  as  we  have  seen,  from  the  mind  at  the  call 
of  experience.  Even  the  correlations  of  physical  forces 
are  to  empirical  observation  only  successions  of  phenom- 
ena; the  unitary  Force  they  represent  is  not  manifest 
to  the  eyes,  and  is  only  intuitively  discerned.  But  cause, 
as  it  is  given  us  to  know  it,  is  of  the  will ;  in  the  very 
mould,  therefore,  where  our  experiences  are  formed  the 
volitional  stamp  is  set  upon  them.  Ordinarily  we  may 
not  think  this ;  when  we  contemplate  an  event,  we  refer 
it  to  a  cause  unqualified  by  any  epithet.  But  when  we 
reflect  on  the  ultimate  nature  of  cause,  we  find  will  impli- 
cated in  the  very  idea.  To  the  relation  of  events  this  is 
brought  by  the  mind,  and  because  of  the  mind  we  must 
think  it,  and  what  we  Diiist  think  we  must  believe  true. 
To  Dr.  Martineau  the  reasoning  from  analogy  may  be 
persuasive,  but  in  these  terms  we  come  nearer  to  his 
characteristic  thought.  On  a  point  of  so  much  signifi- 
cance, though  in  a  passage  of  considerable  length,  it  is 
better  that  he  speak  for  himself  In  his  crushing  rejoinder 
to  Professor  Tyndall  he  says :  "  To  witness  phenomena, 
and  let  them  lie  and  dispose  themselves  in  the  mere  order 
of  time,  space,  and  resemblance,  is  to  us  impossible,  ^y 
the  very  make  of  our  understanding  we  refer  them  to  a 
Power  which  issues  them :  and  no  sooner  is  perception 
startled  by  their  appearance  than  the  intellect  completes 
the  act  by  wonder  at  their  source.  This  '  power,'  how- 
ever, being  a  postulate  intuitively  applied  to  phenomena, 
and  not  an  observed  function  found  in  them,  does  not 
vary  as  they  vary,  but  mentally  repeats  itself  as  the  needed 
prefix  to  every  order  of  them :  and  though  it  may  thus 
migrate,  now  into  this  group,  now  into  that,  it  is  the  dwell- 
ing alone  that  changes,  and  that  which  is  immanent  is 
ever  the  same.  You  can  vary  nothing  in  the  total  fact, 
except   the   collocations    of   material    conditions;    out   of 


328  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

which,  as  each  new  adjustment  emerges,  the  persistent 
Power  eHcits  a  different  result.  Instead  of  first  detecting 
many  forces  in  nature  and  afterwards  running  them  up 
into  identity,  the  mind  imports  one  into  many  collocations : 
never  allowing  it  to  take  different  names,  except  for  a 
moment,  in  order  to  study  its  action,  now  here,  now  there. 
If  this  be  true,  if  causality  be  not  seen,  but  thought,  if 
the  thought  it  carries  belongs  to  a  rule  of  the  understand- 
ing itself,  that  every  phenomenon  is  the  expression  of 
power,  two  consequences  follow :  the  plurality  of  forces 
disappears :  and,  to  find  the  true  interpretation  of  the  One 
which  remains,  we  must  look  not  without  but  within ;  not 
on  the  phenomena  presented,  but  on  the  rational  relations 
into  which  they  are  received.  Power  is  that  which  we 
ineajt  by  it ;  nor  have  we  any  other  way  of  determining 
its  nature  than  by  resort  to  our  own  self-knowledge.  The 
problem  passes  from  the  jurisdiction  of  natural  science 
to  that  of  intellectual  philosophy."  ^  He  then,  after  much 
the  same  fashion  as  that  employed  in  the  preceding  pages, 
finds  his  way  to  the  conclusion  that  the  universe  is  per- 
vaded by  a  Will. 

The  One  Force  so  variously  manifest  is  Will.  Elusive 
when  studied  in  its  outward  manifestations,  it  reveals  its 
identity  to  the  eye  wisely  directed  to  interior  self-scrutiny. 
Is  this  anthropomorphism?  Such  it  has  been  the  fashion 
to  call  it ;  and  in  its  character  as  such,  scientific  thinkers 
like  Tyndall  and  Huxley  have  seen  the  last  reproach  of 
the  faith  of  Martineau.  Yet  Professor  Tyndall  finds  in 
matter  the  "  promise  and  potency  of  all  terrestrial  life," 
which  looks  much  like  Martineau's  anthropomorphism 
taken  in  reverse;  and  whether  with  better  reason  on  its 
side  it  need  not  take  long  to  see.  What  is  matter?  Be- 
tween the  Epicureans,  who  wanted  nothing  more  than  its 
ultimate  atoms  to  build  a  universe,  and  Bishop  Berkeley, 

1  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  iv.  pp.  240-241. 


GOD  AND   COSMOS  329 

who  denied  its  reality,  the  accounts  of  it  are  how  many 
and  how  divergent !  Certainly,  if  spiritualism  is  a  creed  of 
perplexities,  materialism,  as  judged  by  its  history,  is  not 
less  such.  The  existence  of  matter  what  warrant  of  it 
have  we?  The  last  word  we  can  say  of  it  is  that  it  is 
an  affection  of  our  minds.  Is  spiritualism  to  be  held  un- 
trustworthy because  it  is  reasoned  from  ourselves,  and 
materialism,  resting  ultimately  upon  the  like  reasoning,  to 
be  received  with  unquestioning  faith?  With  certainty  may 
I  affirm  that  matter  is  such  and  such  because  I  must  think 
it,  and  must  the  conception  of  mind,  born  of  an  analogous 
necessity,  be  repudiated  as  baseless?  Is  the  former  so 
brave  a  philosophy?  Is  the  latter  so  feeble  a  puerility? 
"  The  existence  of  a  Universal  Will,"  says  Dr.  Martineau, 
"  and  the  existence  of  Matter  stand  on  exactly  the  same 
basis,  —  of  certainty  if  you  trust,  of  uncertainty  if  you  dis- 
trust, the  principia  of  your  own  reason."  ^  And  with 
respect  to  anthropomorphism  in  its  larger  features,  we 
may  appropriate  from  his  titanic  wrestle  with  Professor 
Tyndall  this  weighty  deliverance  :  "  If  I  am  to  see  a  ruling 
Power  in  the  world,  is  it  folly  to  prefer  a  man-like  to  a 
brute-like  power,  a  seeing  to  a  blind?  The  similitude  to 
man  means  no  more  and  goes  no  further  than  the  suprem- 
acy of  intellectual  insight  and  moral  ends  over  every 
inferior  alternative :  and  how  it  can  be  contemptible  and 
childish  to  derive  everything  from  the  highest  known 
order  of  power  rather  than  the  lowest,  and  to  converse 
with  Nature  as  embodied  Thought  instead  of  taking  it  as  a 
dynamic  engine,  it  is  difficult  to  understand.  Is  it  absurd 
to  suppose  mind  transcending  the  human?  or,  if  we  do  so, 
to  make  our  own  Reason  the  analogical  base  for  intellect 
of  wider  sweep  ?  How  is  it  possible  to  look  along  any  line 
of  light  traced  by  past  research,  and,  estimating  the  con- 
tents  which    it   reveals,    and    leaves   still    unrevealed,    to 

^  Essays,  Revictus,  and  Addresses,  vol.  iv.  p.  247. 


330  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

remember  that  along  all  radii  to  which  we  may  turn,  a 
similar  infinitude  presents  itself  to  any  faculty  that  seeks 
it,  and  yet  to  conceive  that  this  mass  of  truth  to  be  known 
has  only  our  weak  intelligence  to  know  it?  And  if  two 
natures  know  the  same  thing,  can  they  be  other  than 
like?"^ 

Thus  through  a  long  pathway  of  thought  he  reaches  his- 
conclusion ;  and  with  it  the  great  postulate  of  theistic  faith 
is  gained.  The  world  expresses  an  Infinite  Will ;  its  laws 
are  decrees ;  in  deciphering  its  hieroglyphic  we  follow  up 
a  Divine  Intelligence  on  Hnes  by  which  it  issued  forth. 
The  dictum  of  the  French  savant,  "  The  heavens  declare 
the  glory  of  Herschel  and  Laplace,"  yields  to  the  refrain  of 
the  Psalmist  which  it  travesties ;  and  philosophy,  grown 
jubilant,  breaks  into  rhapsody. 

"  Thou  visitest  the  earth  and  waterest  it : 
Thou  greatly  enrichest  it, 
The  river  of  God  is  full  of  water: 

Thou  providest  them  corn,  when  thou  hast  prepared  the  earth : 
Thou  waterest  the  furrows  abundantly, 
Thou  settlest  the  ridges  thereof. 
Thou  makest  it  soft  with  showers, 
Thou  blessest  the  springing  thereof, 
Thou  crownest  the  year  with  thy  goodness, 
And  thy  paths  drop  fatness." 

3.  It  hardly  needs  to  be  said  that  Dr.  Martineau  means 
by  Will  what  we  mean  by  it,  the  executive  function  of  In- 
telligence. In  heaven  as  in  earth,  it  discriminates  and 
determines.  There  comes  before  our  minds  the  blind  im- 
pulse which  Schopenhauer  called  Will.  To  Dr.  Martineau 
a  blind  impulse,  acting  but  not  discriminating,  were 
Fatalism,  not  Will.  Causing  implies  willing,  but  "  aimless 
force,  force  that  cannot  define  its  own  path,  but  may  fly 
off  in  any  radius  without  prejudice  to  its  identity,  misses 

1  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  iv.  pp.  247-248. 


GOD   AND   COSMOS  33 1 

the  essence  of  causality."^  That  essence,  as  the  will 
declares  it,  is  in  having  an  aim,  and  choosing  a  pathway, 
and  declining  "  all  radii  but  one."  The  objection  to  the 
argument  from  Design,  that  designing  means  choosing  and 
choosing  implies  limitation,  has  no  favor  in  his  eyes.  To 
select  always  from  ever  present  alternatives  is  of  the  Infi- 
nite Will,  and  is  involved  in  an  infinite  prerogative.  Power 
to  do  is  not  infinite  unless  there  go  with  it  the  power  not 
to  do.     In  the  denial  of  choice  Omnipotence  is  denied. 

A  question  of  method  here  arises.  Where  do  we  find 
the  types  of  Divine  volition?  The  rain  nourishes  the  corn, 
but  spreads  devastation  through  the  river's  overflow ;  water 
slakes  my  thirst,  but  it  may  also  drown  me ;  I  could  not 
live  without  the  sunshine,  yet  it  may  generate  a  miasma 
that  shall  cut  short  my  life ;  the  conditions  that  make  the 
harvest  bountiful  bring  forth  the  pests  that  destroy  it ;  and 
where  nature  is  most  affluent  in  smiles  man  is  most  exposed 
to  the  fever's  breath,  the  wild  beast's  ravage,  and  the  ser- 
pent's fang.  These  contrasts,  contemplated  with  reference 
to  the  Supreme  Will,  have  yielded  conclusions  how  diverse  ! 
Scepticism  has  found  in  them  justification  of  its  doubt; 
simple  faith  has  explained  them  by  the  alternation  of  his 
moods,  the  kindlier  experience  telling  of  his  grace,  the 
harsher  of  his  wrath.  There  is  yet  another,  which  we  may 
perhaps  call  the  stoic  temper,  which  finds  utterance  in  the 
words  of  the  prophet  Isaiah :  "  I  am  the  Lord,  and  there  is 
none  else.  I  form  the  light,  and  create  darkness :  I  make 
peace,  and  create  evil :   I  the  Lord  do  these  things." 

Our  personal  vicissitudes  are  so  engrossing  to  ourselves 
that  it  is  often  hard  for  us  to  think  of  them  as  not  a  matter 
of  immediate  concern  in  the  legislation  of  the  universe ;  and 
it  is  sometimes  felt  to  be  a  cold  philosophy  that  refuses  to 
see  the  direct  agency  of  Heaven  in  the  exigencies  of  our 
travel,  or  the  issues  of  our  pathology ;  yet  such  negative 

^  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  244. 


332  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

conclusion  is  essential  in  Dr.  Martineau's  philosophy,  which 
finds  the  types  of  Divine  volition  not  in  the  details  of  ex- 
perience, but  in  the  ruhng  forces  of  the  world.  In  his  own 
language,  "  Every  law  represents  one  thought  and  is  the 
explicit  unfolding  of  one  comprehensive  and  standing 
volition."  ^  The  single  volition,  that  is,  is  represented 
by  one  law  with  all  it  carries.  When  the  decree  went 
forth,  Let  there  be  light;  it  was  not  stipulated  that  it 
should  not  dazzle  my  eyes,  or  be  unattended  by  other 
inconvenience  to  me  and  to  other  sublunary  creatures.  In 
light  we  have  a  "  single  genus  of  power,"  a  "  dynamic 
constant,"  that  holds  its  course  and  works  its  effects  in 
apparent  indifference  to  particular  grievances  that  may  be 
laid  to  its  charge.  So  in  the  appointment  that  the  rains 
fall,  the  convenience  of  my  journey  is  not  taken  into  con- 
sideration. Heat  seems  appointed  to  its  tasks  without 
respect  to  the  myriad  seemingly  unfriendly  contingencies 
that  hang  upon  its  action ;  chemical  action  holds  on  its 
way  regardless  of  the  pestilence  it  may  generate ;  electri- 
city I  must  handle  circumspectly,  or  while  serving  me  it 
may  kill  me.  A  law  with  its  full  budget  of  consequences, 
changeless  and  passionless,  —  this  is  what  the  volition 
seems  to  signify.  In  its  origin  a  decree  of  Will,  it  is  left 
to  be  one  of  the  fixed  and  ever  calculable  habits  of  nature. 
And  despite  all  our  incidental  inconveniences  and  even 
suffering,  how  much  better  so  !  The  problem  of  wisdom 
and  goodness  in  the  universe  belongs  to  later  pages ;  but 
we  may  here  wander  from  our  path  so  far  as  to  remark 
that  through  this  invariableness  the  discipline  of  man  and 
the  possibility  of  his  knowledge  of  the  universe  are  pro- 
vided. But  something  more  than  this  is  wanted,  something 
this  fixity,  if  carried  up  through  all  the  zones  of  our  moral 
and  spiritual  nature,  would  render  it  impossible  to  believe; 
and  Dr.   Martineau  finds  a  way  to  it.     In  his  critique  of 

^  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  222. 


GOD   AND   COSMOS  333 

Professor  Tyndall  is  a  remarkable  passage  in  which  he 
asks :  "  Does  anything  forbid  us  to  conceive  similarly  of 
the  cosmical  development ;  that  it  started  from  the  freedom 
of  indefinite  possibilities  and  the  ubiquity  of  universal  con- 
sciousness ;  that,  as  intellectual  exclusions  narrowed  the 
field,  and  traced  the  definite  lines  of  admitted  movement, 
the  tension  of  purpose,  less  needed  on  these,  left  them  as 
habits  of  the  universe,  and  operated  for  higher  and  ever 
higher  ends  not  yet  provided  for ;  that  the  more  mechan- 
ical, therefore,  a  natural  law  may  be,  the  further  is  it  from  its 
source;  and  that  the  inorganic  and  unconscious  portion  of 
the  world,  instead  of  being  the  potentiality  of  the  organic 
and  the  conscious,  is  rather  its  residual  precipitate,  formed 
as  the  Indwelling  Mind  of  all  concentrates  an  intenser 
aim  on  the  upper  margin  of  the  ordered  whole,  and  espe- 
cially on  the  inner  life  of  natures  that  can  resemble  him?  "  ^ 
The  purpose  of  this  passage  is  to  exhibit  a  very  possi- 
ble relation  of  volitions  left  to  be  the  laws  of  matter  with 
higher  and  more  elastic  operations  of  the  Divine  Will.  This 
is  a  thought  never  far  from  the  mind  of  Dr.  Martineau. 
Whatever  constraints  the  Divine  Mind  may  impose  upon 
nature,  higher  up,  where  he  deals  with  conscience  and  the 
soul,  the  constraint  relaxes.  With  whatever  confidence  we 
may  calculate,  we  still  may  pray.  While  science,  from  the 
divineness  that  pervades  its  field,  may  well  be  devout,  it 
does  not  follow  that  devotion,  at  its  altitude,  should  be 
scientific.  Rather  here  is  a  place  where  the  free  spirit  of 
man  meets  the  free  spirit  of  God. 

Like  other  speculators  of  like  tendencies  of  mind.  Dr. 
Martineau  braces  his  intuitionalism  by  a  survey  of  Nature, 
gathering  up  the  accordant  notes  she  ofters  him.  Of  them- 
selves alone  they  might  not  satisfy  him ;  bringing  to  their 
study,  however,  an  a  priori  warrant  for  his  faith,  they  serve 
most  admirably  as  illustration.     The  notes  of  purpose  in 

1  Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  vol.  iv.  pp.  249-250. 


334  JAMES    MARTINEAU 

nature,  reasoning  on  the  basis  of  human  analogy,  are 
neither  few  nor  insignificant.  "  If  they  are  apparent  in  the 
structure  of  a  cottage,"  he  asks,  "  are  they  absent  from  the 
hut  of  the  beaver  and  the  nest  of  the  wasp  ?  Does  the  gran- 
ary of  the  farmer  provide  for  the  future  any  better  than  the 
storehouse  of  the  squirrel?  Is  there  more  skill  in  a  pair  of 
spectacles,  than  in  a  pair  of  eyes? —  in  a  guitar,  than  in  the 
vocal  chords  of  a  Malibran  or  a  Stanley?  —  in  the  hunter's 
snare,  than  in  the  spider's  web?  —  in  the  lover's  serenade, 
than  in  the  nightingale's  song?  —  in  the  oars  of  a  boat, 
than  in  the  fin  of  a  fish?"^  That  here  is  adaptation  to 
ends  which  squirrel  and  bee  and  beaver  could  not  have  fore- 
seen, is  plain.  Originality  is  ours  ;  it  is  not  theirs.  We  can 
plan  and  build  for  the  future :  of  foresight  and  intention 
they  cannot  do  so.  To  us  is  reason ;  to  them  is  instinct. 
Through  the  possession  of  reason  we  are  fitted  for  our 
province,  and  are  left  in  charge  of  it ;  they,  a  part  of  na- 
ture, are  directed  by  its  Indwelling  Spirit.  Through  our 
reason  we  purpose  and  perform ;  through  their  instinct 
works  the  Reason  of  Reason. 

One  result  of  this  doctrine  of  causation  is  evident:  the 
old  distinction  between  First  Cause  and  second  causes  dis- 
appears. Save  as  man  in  the  exercise  of  his  free  will  is  a 
second  cause,  there  is  no  cause  in  the  universe  but  God. 
Material  causes,  so  called,  are  only  material  conditions, 
physical  forces  but  physical  means,  man's  free  will  but  the 
unnecessitated  agent  of  a  Power  that  is  over  all,  and  in  all, 
and  through  all.  The  universe  is  enchanted  by  an  Infinite 
Will,  through  which  suns  blaze  and  civilizations  blossom; 
and  whose  purposes  unfold  in  the  issues  of  history. 

II.    The  Intellectual  Aspects  of  the  Universe 

The  consideration  incidentally  touched  upon  in  the 
closing   paragraph  of  the  above  statement  must  now  be 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  247. 


GOD   AND   COSMOS  335 

more  explicitly  dealt  with.  Does  the  universe  ratify  the 
result  reached  by  the  study  of  the  causal  intuition?  In  its 
processes,  widely  surveyed,  do  we  trace  the  presence  of 
Mind?  With  these  questions  the  argument  from  Design 
or  Final  Causes  is  before  us.  The  argument  stands  not 
where  it  stood  in  the  times  of  Paley  and  Bridgewater  Trea- 
tises ;  though  they  mistake  who  suppose  that  these  writ- 
ings have  lost  their  persuasiveness ;  and  they  more  gravely 
mistake  who  suppose  the  interest  in  this  argument  is  mate- 
rially less  than  a  century  ago.  The  philosophy  of  Evolu- 
tion, indeed,  presented  the  universe  in  another  aspect; 
and  some  of  the  writings  of  its  earlier  expounders,  as  the 
Lay  Sermons,  the  Belfast  Address,  and  the  First  Principles, 
were  certainly  disquieting  to  the  teleologist.  If  mecha- 
nism could  do  so  much,  what  need  of  God?  The  net  result 
as  seen  in  the  mind  of  to-day,  however,  is  probably  not 
less  faith,  but  more  caution.  We  turn  to  the  universe  not 
with  less  confidence  that  Design  is  there,  but  with  the 
sense  of  the  need  of  a  deeper  insight  and  a  broader  out- 
look. This  is  well ;  for  we  were  acquiring  a  facility  for 
tracing  Design  which  was  bringing  the  argument  into  dis- 
repute through  a  cumbersome  mass  of  puerilities.  The 
illustration  of  Paley,  a  watch  picked  up  on  a  heath,  digni- 
fied and  masterful  as  he  used  it,  imitated  by  feebler  minds, 
brought  into  literature  a  multitude  of  supposed  Designs, 
which  might  often  be  looked  upon  as  ingenious  parody 
were  it  not  for  their  evident  sincerity;  and  there  was 
appositeness  as  well  as  humor  in  the  remark  of  Hegel  that 
"  though  wine  be  useful  to  man,  neither  religion  nor 
science  is  profited  by  supposing  the  cork-tree  to  exist  for 
the  sake  of  the  corks  which  are  cut  from  its  bark  to  serve 
as  stoppers  for  wine-bottles."  ^ 

There  are  two  ways  in  which  the  marks  of  intelligence 
in  nature  may  be  used  in  theistic  arguments.     The  one  is 

1  Quoted  from  Schurman's  Belief  in  God. 


33^  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

as  proof:  Here  is  Design,  it  is  argued,  therefore  there 
must  be  a  Designer.  Alike  in  a  watch  and  in  a  world, 
intelligent  adaptation  implies  intelligence.  The  orderly- 
arrangement  of  words  that  results  in  an  In  Memoriam  or  a 
Sordello  is  no  chance  affair;  the  orderly  detail  of  nature 
that  brings  forth  an  eye  or  an  ear  no  more  such.  This  is 
the  Paleyan  argument,  though  of  date  far  earlier  than 
Paley. 

The  second  use  of  it  is  as  illustration.  Having  the  con- 
viction that  there  is  a  God,  the  believer  may  see  in  the 
order  of  the  universe  the  tokens  of  His  wisdom.  Knowing 
God  already,  he  looks  abroad  and  says.  These  are  His 
ways.  With  his  faith  the  aspect  of  the  universe  is  accord- 
ant.    What  he  carries  to  it,  that  he  finds. 

Now  the  former  of  these,  the  Design  argument  proper, 
has  had  illustrious  recognition.  Socrates  used  it  in  his 
way,  Plato  also,  and  Cicero;  Kant  treated  it  with  respect; 
Mill  coldly  confessed  its  validity.  Yet  there  have  never 
been  wanting  those  who  could  not  feel  its  persuasiveness; 
who,  though  willing  enough  to  confess  the  universe  the 
handiwork  of  God,  have  yet  felt  the  human  mind  unequal 
to  the  divination  of  its  meaning:  have  found  its  scope  too 
vast,  or  its  symbolism  too  mysterious.  Thus  Descartes, 
who,  as  he  believed,  proved  to  absolute  certainty  the  being 
of  God,  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  Final  Causes. 
"  We  must  not  be  so  presumptuous,"  says  he,  "  as  to  think 
God  has  taken  us  into  his  counsels."  Also,  while  for  this 
reason  many  earnest  theists  have  been  unwilling  to  use  the 
argument,  there  have  been  theists  not  less  earnest  who 
have  doubted  its  absolute  validity.  For  instance.  Dr.  F.  H. 
Hedge,  while  allowing  to  it  "  great  theological  value," 
could  not  find  in  it  that  complete  demonstration  which  its 
prophets  claim  for  it.^  "  The  truth  of  an  hypothesis,"  says 
he,  "  which  seems  to  solve  a  given  problem  is  not  estab- 

^  See  "  Critique  of  Proofs  of  the  Being  of  God  "  in  Ways  of  the  Spirit. 


GOD   AND   COSMOS  337 

lished  by  that  solution,  unless  the  solution  is  complete;" 
and  he  adds,  **  If  it  fails  to  satisfy  that  condition,  it  is  sim- 
ply the  best  hypothesis,  nothing  more."  To  this  rigorous 
requirement  he  finds  the  argument  unequal.  With  what- 
ever array  of  facts  it  may  be  justified,  still  he  holds  that 
the  opposite  contention  has  not  been  logically  invalidated ; 
that  still  it  may  be  maintained  that  the  necessities  of  exist- 
ence are  such,  rather  than  that  thus  a  Divine  Intelligence 
appointed.  Of  the  two  hypotheses  the  latter  may  seem 
the  more  reasonable,  but  that  does  not  make  the  former 
untenable.  The  argument  may  comfort  belief;  but,  in 
effect  he  asks,  did  it  ever  win  a  Comte  or  a  Laplace  from 
unbelief?  Further  he  points  out  the  significant  circum- 
stance that  the  great  expounders  of  the  argument  have 
gone  to  Nature  "  not  to  ascertain  an  unknown  fact,  but  to 
justify  an  assumed  one."  Believers  when  they  sought  her, 
they  were  simply  better  assured  believers  after  their  inter- 
view with  her.  Had  they  gone  to  this  interview  with  minds 
blank  to  the  idea  of  God,  he  is  very  doubtful  if  they  would 
have  returned  from  it  with  the  radiant  faith  they  have  illus- 
trated. In  this  we  should  certainly  agree  with  him.  The 
Deity  we  find  in  Nature  we  first  meet  within  ourselves; 
and  the  Hebrew  prophet  had  surely  not  admonished.  Lift 
up  your  eyes  on  high,  and  behold  who  hath  created  these 
things,  had  he  not  known,  had  he  not  heard,  had  it  not  \ 
been  told  him  from  the  beginning.  Dr.  Hedge  further  \ 
says  that  Paley  and  the  Bridgewater  writers  "  have  brought  • 
to  view  the  exquisite  adaptations  of  Nature,  and,  on  the  \ 
supposition  of  a  God  for  its  author,  have  abundantly  illus-  ' 
trated  the  wondrous  skill  of  the  Creator."  It  was,  then, 
the  second  or  illustrative  use  of  Design  that  he  would 
recognize.  Though  it  may  not  suffice  to  establish  the 
existence  of  God,  it  may  show  the  wisdom  of  God,  if 
already  known.  With  this  view  Dr.  Martineau  is  in  clear 
accord.     He    betrays,  indeed,  an  interest  in  the  Paleyan 

22 


338  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

doctrine  which  his  American  contemporary  does  not 
reflect;  but  in  the  structure  of  his  brilliant  argument  it  is 
God  that  shows  him  Nature,  not  Nature  that  shows  him 
God.  His  inquiry  is  to  "  ascertain  whether  the  world 
answers,  in  its  constitution,  to  our  intuitive  interpretation  of 
it  as  the  manifestation  of  intellectual  purpose."  ^  So  plain 
is  this  relation  of  thought  in  his  argument  that  it  is  simply 
astonishing  that  his  doctrine  should  ever  have  begn  mis- 
taken for  the  Paleyaa.  Like  most  other  profound  students 
of  Natural  Theology  during  the  last  century,  he  has  given 
very  evident  attention  to  Paley's  writings :  yet  the  attitude 
of  the  two  minds  is  entirely  different.  fWhile  Paley  would 
say  to  the  atheist.  See  these  marks  of  Design ;  either 
discredit  them  or,  for  consistency's  sake,  be  an  atheist  no 
more,  Dr.  Martineau  would  say,  See  these  marks  of 
Design ;  how  beautifully  they  ratify  the  intuition  of  an 
Intelligent  Cause.  ■  For  the  security  of  the  primary  pos- 
tulate of  his  faith  Dr.  Martineau  does  not  need  Final 
Causes ;  like  Descartes,  he  could  have  maintained  it,  as 
he  achieved  it,  by  philosophic  insight  alone.  The  form, 
however,  which  it  takes  in  his  speculation,  that  of  Intelli- 
gent Will,  makes  its  justification  by  Nature  especially 
desirable ;  and  the  two  placed  over  against  each  other, 
Will  as  philosophically  found  and  Will  as  traced  in  the 
processes  of  Nature,  together  make  a  course  of  doctrine 
both  weighty  and  impressive. 

The  line  of  contention  of  the  advocate  of  Final  Causes  is 
Intelligence  versus  Automatism.  Are  the  adaptations  we 
meet  in  nature  the  happy  hit  of  unintelligent  forces,  or  did 
an  Intelligence  direct  them?  Or,  more  accordant  with  Dr. 
Martineau's  attitude,  an  Intelligent  Being  granted,  do  we 
find  in  nature  the  tokens  of  His  action? 

What  are  the  tokens  of  intelligent  action?  Dr.  Mar- 
tineau   specifies   three :    selection,   combination,  gradation. 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  258. 


GOD   AND   COSMOS  339 

Through  these,  intelligence,  as  we  know  it,  ever  executes 
its  tasks.  Of  many  possibles  it  selects  one  ;  various  selec- 
tions it  brings  together  into  a  harmonious  whole ;  and 
throughout  the  structure  it  subordinates  minor  ends  to 
larger  ones.  These  features  are  ever  met  in  the  works  of 
men,  as  a  watch,  a  house,  a  railway,  a  book,  a  statue,  a 
picture,  a  school,  a  creed,  a  government.  For  instance, 
a  book.  Of  many  possible  Hnes  of  thought  or  groupings 
of  fact  the  author  selects  a  few;  these  few,  through  suc- 
cessive chapters,  he  brings  into  harmonious  relation ;  and 
throughout  the  whole  he  is  ruled  by  a  law  of  gradation  by 
which  minor  matters  open  the  way  to  those  of  larger  im- 
portance. From  works  of  human  intelligence  these  marks 
are  never  absent;  and  meeting  them  in  nature,  it  is  reason- 
able to  say.  Either  Intelligence  has  been  here,  or  unin- 
telligent forces  have  blindly  simulated  its  methods. 

In  the  presence  of  these  alternatives,  one  of  course  may 
embrace  either,  but  which  he  will  embrace  will  depend,  so 
teaches  Andrew  Seth,^  on  whether  the  philosophical  or 
the  strictly  scientific  spirit  rules  him.  Science  can  hardly 
be  teleological ;  but  philosophy,  however  variously  it  may 
conceive,  cannot  permanently  give  up,  teleology.  The 
aim  of  philosophy  is  to  rationalize  the  universe ;  and,  out- 
side the  crudest  materialism,  that  is  not  likely  to  be  con- 
ceived as  having  a  rationale  which  is  not  in  some  sense  the 
offspring  of  Reason  and  ruled  to  its  ends.  The  signifi- 
cance of  this  consideration  is  so  prevailing  that,  however 
an  occasional  philosopher  may  decline  teleological  judg- 
ment, philosophy,  true  to  the  principle  of  its  life,  will  yet 
dare  it.  The  difference  between  Dr.  Martineau  and  the 
schools  now  in  the  ascendant  is  not  one  of  teleology  and 
no  teleology,  but  turns  on  the  question  where  the  war- 
rant of  teleological  judgment  may  be  found.  They  find 
it  in  what  they  conceive  to    be  the  great  end   of  Crea- 

1  Man's  Place  in  the  Cosmos,  pp.  56-58. 


340  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

tion ;  he  sees  it  here,  and  also  in  many  a  detail  by  which 
that  end  is  being  furthered.  Let  us  follow  him  in  his 
illustrations. 

I.  Selection.  Do  we  find  this  in  nature?  We  know 
how  man  dealing  with  the  products  of  nature  may  select: 
how  a  florist,  finding  a  rose  of  peculiar  tint,  by  a  process 
of  selection  may  propagate  and  improve  it ;  how  the 
poultry  fancier  will  in  like  manner  improve  his  brood,  and 
how  the  experimenter  upon  domestic  animals  may  pro- 
duce sheep  of  finer  wool,  and  cows  of  richer  milk,  and 
horses  of  fleeter  foot.  We  know  also  what  naturalist,  after 
contemplating  this  kind' of  selection,  turned  to  nature  with 
the  question  whether  she  also  selected ;  and  how,  in 
answer  to  his  question,  she  flashed  upon  him,  with  all  its 
measureless  implications,  the  great  law  of  Natural  Selec- 
tion, There  is,  then,  selection  in  nature ;  and  the  denial 
of  it  would  require  that  our  latter-day  natural  history  be 
rewritten.  It  is  divined  from  the  intelligent  action  of  man  ; 
shall  we  say  it  is  of  nature's  automatic  action  merely,  or 
shall  we  refer  it  to  an  Intelligence  that,  using  nature  as  its 
instrument,  directs  the  choice? 

Illustrations  of  this  law  any  student  can  easily  supply 
for  himself  There  is  one,  however,  on  which  Dr.  Marti- 
neau  especially  dwells ;  which  through  the  ingenuity  of 
his  presentation  has  gained  considerable  attention.  It  is 
drawn  from  a  study  of  the  anterior  limbs  of  vertebrate 
animals.  In  skeletons  we  find  in  them  a  unity  of  plan, 
and  a  like  relation  of  this  part  to  the  whole ;  and  yet  what 
possibilities !  "  The  changes,"  says  he,  "  that  might  be 
rung  upon  them  by  extension  or  contraction  of  size,  by 
altered  proportions  of  their  members,  by  readjustment  of 
weight,  by  shifting  their  leverage,  by  modifying  their 
muscular  apparatus,  are  endlessly  in  excess  of  all  actual 
types."  ^      Now   what   has   limited    the    number   of  these 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  pp.  259-260. 


GOD   AND   COSMOS  34 I 

actual  types?  We  cannot  think  of  them  as  "accidental 
variations ;  "  on  the  contrary,  all  agree  that  the  hmits  of 
variation  have  strict  "  reference  to  the  medium  in  which 
the  creature  is  to  live ;  reducing  it  to  the  pectoral  fin  of 
the  fish  and  the  paddle  of  the  seal ;  or  extending  it  into  the 
wing  of  the  bird,  itself  elongated  by  the  primary  feathers 
which  grow  from  the  fingers;  and  in  terrestrial  animals 
terminating  it  with  the  hoof  or  toe  for  progression,  the 
claw  for  battle,  the  hand  for  prehensile  use."  ^ 

How  shall  we  explain  this  adaptation  of  the  organ  to  the 
conditions  of  the  creature's  existence?  Why  in  its  form  is 
it  so  strictly  relative  to  the  creature's  environment?  There 
are  those  who  answer  that  it  is  the  environment  itself 
which  equips  the  creature  for  life  within  it.  Now  environ- 
ment can  undoubtedly  do  many  things,  but  are  there  not 
limits  to  its  achievements?  However  fishes  may  leap  into 
the  air,  the  fin  shows  no  tendency  to  become  a  wing ;  and 
though  semi-aquatic  birds  are  much  in  water,  they  show 
no  tendency  to  take  on  the  structure  of  its  finny  inhabi- 
tants. "  Except  in  mythologic  tales,"  says  Dr.  Martineau, 
"no  fisherman,  like  Glaucus  of  Anthedon,  can  betake  him- 
self to  his  own  element  and  become  a  marine  inhabitant 
indistinguishable  from  the  fish,  even  though  he  has  an  im- 
mortality to  do  it  in.  Nor  could  any  air  that  blows  help  the 
arms  that  beat  it  to  grow  into  wings ;  whatever  force  was 
called  into  action  by  incipient  attempts  to  fly  would  work 
in  opposition  to  such  direction  of  development  and  sweep 
away  its  first  beginnings."  His  reason  for  this  conclusion 
seems  plain  :  "  TJie  waters  and  the  atmosphere  can  never  set 
up  histrwnents  of  resistance  to  themselves.'''^  However, 
then,  the  environment  may  be  a  foster  nurse  to  develop 
an  organ  incipiently  provided,  its  absolute  provision  is  not 
within  its  possibilities.  For  this,  then,  we  must  turn  from 
the  environment  to  the  organism.     Dr.  Martineau  dwells 

^  Siudy  of  Religion,  p.  260.  ^  Ibid. 


342  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

at  length  upon  two  views  of  the  genesis  of  this :  one  the 
pre-formation  theory  of  the  earher  physiologists  who  held 
that  the  organism  was  potential  in  the  egg  or  germ,  so 
that  in  its  production  there  was  only  needed  the  course  of 
development.  That  is  to  say,  the  structure  is  in  its  every 
part  pre-formed  in  the  embryo,  which  unfolds  according 
to  a  "directing  and  organizing  idea"  or  "vital  design,"  a 
view  which,  of  course,  only  pushes  the  selectioji  back  to  the 
source  of  that  "  vital  design^  The  other  view  is  that  of 
epigenesis,  and  is  far  in  the  ascendant  in  our  time.  The 
embryos  of  man  and  of  many  of  the  animals  below  him  are 
at  an  early  stage  indistinguishable  one  from  another.  The 
theory  is  that  the  distinguishing  features  which  appear 
later  are  not  developed  but  added  on.  According  to  the 
former  view,  the  whole  precedes  the  parts ;  according  to 
the  latter,  the  parts  precede  the  whole.  Now  it  is  held  by 
some  that  this  latter  view  is  inimical  to  the  Design  argu- 
ment. Dr.  Martineau,  however,  conceives  the  reverse. 
"  For,"  says  he,  "  if  we  want  to  conceive  of  development 
within  a  purely  physical  circle  of  processes,  with  a  mini- 
mum of  temptation  to  enquire  beyond,  surely  the  gradual 
increase  of  a  given  form  in  all  its  dimensions  at  once 
leaves  us  less  to  ask,  than  the  successive  aggregation  of 
heterogeneous  organs  of  which  no  hint  had  before  been 
given."  ^  Also  so  valiant  an  advocate  of  Design  as  Janet 
would,  in  the  interest  of  his  doctrine,  adopt  this  view  in 
preference  to  the  earlier  one.^  Surely  a  ship  is  none  the 
less    a   work   of  Design    because    not   pre-formed  in  the 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  261. 

2  "Given,"  says  he,  "an  organism  in  miniature,  I  could  easily  compre- 
hend that  the  growth  and  enlargement  should  take  place  by  purely  mechani- 
cal laws.  But  what  I  do  not  comprehend  is  that  a  juxtaposition  or  addi- 
tion of  parts,  which  only  represents  external  relations  between  the  ele- 
ments, should  be  found,  little  by  little,  to  have  produced  a  work  which  I 
would  call  a  work  of  art  if  a  Vaucauson  had  made  it,  but  which  is  much 
more  complicated  and  delicate  than  one  of  Vaucauson's  automata."  Fittal 
Causes,  p.  139. 


GOD   AND   COSMOS  343 

timber,  but  brought  together  part  by  part.  With  one  of 
these  theories  as  with  the  other  the  hypothesis  of  Design 
will  work  equally  well ;  and  to  a  Huxley  or  a  Haeckel  we 
may  say  that  finding  out  how  a  thing  is  done  is  not  the 
same  as  proving  that  God  did  not  do  it.^ 

Thus  there  is  selection  in  nature ;  and  such  seems  its 
meaning.  But  (^2^  is  therQ  cojnl?inatw/i  also?  The  student 
of  Darwin  is  familiar  with  correlation  of  growth,  a  truth 
recognized  by  Cuvier  a  half-century  before  Darwin,  and 
made  his  guiding  light  in  his  wonderful  reconstructions  of 
extinct  animals  from  fossil  remains.  Every  part  so  implies 
another  part  that,  given  any  bone,  a  "  person  who  possesses 
an  accurate  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  organic  economy  may 
reconstruct  the  whole  animal."  Here  within  the  organism, 
correlation  is,  of  course,  but  another  word  for  combination  ; 
but  combination,  in  Dr.  Martineau's  use  of  the  word,  has  a 
much  wider  application.  Here  is  combination  of  part  with 
part ;  there  is  also  combination  of  "  organic  change  "  with 
a  "  special  direction  of  muscular  activity."  At  approach 
of  winter  the  frog,  the  snake,  the  tortoise,  seek  a  fitting 
place  for  their  winter's  sleep ;  at  the  approach  of  the  birth 
season  the  smelt  in  the  lake  seeks  the  brook ;  the  salmon 
ascends  the  river ;  the  bird  builds  its  nest ;  the  caterpillar 
weaves  its  web;  — the  stirring  of  the  reproductive  impulse, 
which  none  will  pretend  that  these  creatures  understand, 
is  synchronized  by  these  acts  of  preparation.  A  woman 
approaching  maternity  gets  ready  a  cradle  ;  and  her  action 
we  say  is  intelligent.     Can  we  then  say  that  the  like  action 

^  In  the  above  sentence  I  detect  myself  borrowing  from  Miss  Cobbe. 
The  passage  is  so  apposite  that  I  cannot  err  in  quoting  it  entire:  "It  is  a 
singular  fact  that,  whenever  we  find  out  how  anything  is  done,  our  first  con- 
clusion seems  to  be  that  God  did  not  do  it.  No  matter  how  wonderful,  how 
beautiful,  how  infinitely  complex  and  delicate  has  been  the  machinery  that 
has  worked,  perhaps  for  centuries,  perhaps  for  millions  of  ages,  to  bring 
about  some  beneficent  result,  —  if  we  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  wheels  its 
divine  character  disappears.  The  machinery  did  it  all.  It  would  be  altc 
gether  superfluous  to  look  further."     Darwinism  in  Morals,  p.  5. 


344  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

on  the  part  of  these  lower  creatures  is  merely  automatic? 
We  grant  these  creatures  without  intelligence ;  but  is  intel- 
ligence wholly  unrelated  with  their  conduct?  It  must  be 
so,  or  the  intelligence  of  nature,  which  is  the  intelligence 
of  a  Mind  that  ordains  nature,  must  work  through  them 
and  direct  them. 

There  is  another  combination  of  organism  with  nature, 
and  of  this  illustration  is  endless.  Seasonal  for  the  child's 
need  is  the  flow  of  its  mother's  milk,  and  in  the  art  of 
appropriating  it  the  child  needs  no  instruction  ;  and  the 
human  babe,  as  Dr.  Martineau  remarks,  is  here  on  terms 
of  exact  equality  with  the  young  of  other  mammalia 
whether  of  the  earth  or  the  sea.  But  more  suggestive 
than  this  is  the  provision  of  far  lower  creatures  for  their 
offspring.  Every  spring  the  caterpillar  weaves  its  web 
upon  our  apple  trees,  never  upon  our  beeches  or  maples, 
guided  by  a  foresight  surely  not  its  own  to  the  tree 
whose  leaves  will  yield  food  for  its  young.  The  burying 
beetle  seeks  the  carcass  of  some  small  animal,  as  a  frog 
or  a  mouse,  with  the  aid  of  its  fellows  covers  it  with 
sand,  and  then  deposits  its  larvae  within  it;  which  thus  find 
right  about  them  their  appropriate  aliment.  The  case  of 
the  pompoles  is  perhaps  more  striking.  When  mature, 
the  insect  lives  on  flowers.  Its  larvae,  however,  are  carniv- 
orous ;  and  so  the  mother  places  in  the  nest  where  her  eggs 
are  deposited  the  body  of  a  spider  or  caterpillar,  thus  pro- 
viding for  her  young  a  food  suited  to  them,  but  which  she 
could  not  eat.  Not  less  suggestive  is  the  phenomenon  of 
migration.  That  other  creatures  should  like  to  change 
their  abode  with  the  season,  to  man  seems  natural  enough; 
but  in  the  manner  of  their  doing  so  there  is  food  for  reflec- 
tion. Dr.  Martineau  quotes  the  example  of  shoals  of  tur- 
tles that  "  regularly  swim  from  the  bay  of  Honduras  to  the 
Cayman  islands,  near  Jamaica,  —  a  favorable  spot  for  laying 
their  eggs,  —  and  make  this  distance  of  four  hundred  and 


GOD   AND   COSMOS  345 

fifty  miles  with  such  precision,  that  in  thick  weather  ships 
can  sail  under  the  guidance  of  their  rustling  in  the  water."  ^ 
Then  there  is  the  flight  of  birds  through  hundreds  of  miles 
of  trackless  space,  yet  ruled  by  an  accuracy  which  the  cal- 
culations of  the  mariner  cannot  surpass.  "  We  can  ima- 
gine readily  enough,"  says  Dr.  Martineau,  "  how  changes 
of  temperature  might  awaken  in  these  birds  a  desire  to 
secure  perpetual  summer  by  keeping  a  second  country 
house  not  deserted  by  the  sun ;  but  by  what  mysterious 
sympathy  between  their  nature  and  the  latitudes  and  lon- 
gitudes of  the  earth  their  Hnes  of  flight  are  directed,  by 
what  magnetic  needle  within  them  they  trace  their  unerr- 
ing path,  by  what  secret  chronometry  they  hit  upon  the 
date  of  passage  and  keep  the  appointment  with  their 
old  habitat,  is  inexplicable  except  as  part  of  the  intel- 
lectual combinations  of  the  world."  ^ 

There  is  another  combination  on  which  Dr.  Martineau 
lingers  with  very  evident  interest :  it  is  that  provided  for 
in  the  complete  absence  of  one  of  the  related  elements. 
A  hearing-trumpet  invented  by  one  totally  deaf,  or  a  mi- 
croscope by  one  totally  blind,  would  not  be  thought  of  as 
produced  without  intelligence ;  rather  they  would  be  re- 
ferred to  an  intelligence  that  was  preternatural.  But  the 
ear  is  an  instrument  for  hearing,  in  complexity  and  delicacy 
infinitely  beyond  any  of  man's  devising,  and  the  eye  an  in- 
strument for  seeing,  compared  with  which  our  microscope 
or  telescope  is  but  clumsy  apprentice  work.  Yet  both  are 
formed  in  entire  insulation  from  the  medium  in  which  they 
are  to  act :  the  ear  where  are  no  aerial  vibrations,  the  eye 
where  is  no  light.  When,  however,  they  emerge  into  the 
"  element  "  in  relation  with  which  they  are  to  perform  their 
ofiice,  this  wondrous  adaptation  !  Certainly  the  philoso- 
pher may  be  entitled  to  respectful  consideration  who  sees 
here  something  akin  to  a  pre-established  harmony.     Now 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  293.  2  /^/^.  p.  294. 


346  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

there  are  those  who  will  argue  that  though  the  ear  and  the 
eye  are  formed  in  insulation  from  their  element,  they  are 
yet  formed  within  the  matrix  of  a  being  who  has  them  in 
perfect  adjustment  with  that  element.  Be  it  so:  we  are 
given  a  point  in  their  genealogy,  but  are  told  nothing  of 
their  genesis.  Here  the  evolutionist  brings  forward  his 
explanation :  Light  forms  the  eye,  sound  forms  the  ear ; 
and  hence  the  harmony.  Given  a  clot  of  protoplasm,  light 
acting  upon  it  will  call  forth  an  incipient  eye  and  sound 
waves  an  incipient  ear;  and  from  this  beginning,  which  is 
next  to  nothing.  Natural  Selection  will  carry  on  the  pro- 
cess to  completion.  Again  be  it  so;  yet  myriad  objects 
are  beaten  upon  by  these  twofold  vibrations,  and  no  nerve 
of  sight  or  of  hearing  appears  in  them.  That  thus  they 
may  be  formed  within  the  protoplasm,  they  must  be  poten- 
tially there.  Ability  to  awaken  on  the  one  side  implies 
ability  to  be  awakened  on  the  other.  In  the  protoplasm 
must  be  eye  and  ear  of  earlier  date ;  and  the  fact  that 
light  and  sound  perform  a  part  in  their  development  is  not 
in  the  slightest  degree  dissonant  with  our  thesis.  Again  it 
is  legitimate  to  urge  that  finding  out  how  a  thing  is  done 
is  not  the  same  as  proving  that  God  did  not  do  it. 

3.  We  come  next  to  gradation.  In  nature  do  we  find 
this?  Indeed  we  do.  Without  entering  into  the  study 
of  the  vegetable  or  animal  economy,  which  we  could  not 
pursue  without  recognizing  a  system  of  means  and  ends, 
which  to  many  a  thinker  has  borne  sufficing  testimony, 
we  may  draw  our  illustrations  from  the  larger  features  of 
the  evolutionary  story.  Saying  nothing  of  the  earlier 
chapters,  a  molten  and  a  frozen  world,  which,  if  we  took 
note  of  nothing  else,  we  might  leave  to  the  rule  of  unde- 
signing  forces,  we  come  to  life,  and  it  is  difficult  not  to  see 
in  the  prior  processes  a  preparation  for  this.  Allow  that 
there  were  only  elements  before ;  now  they  have  found 
an  end  in  an  organism  which  they  support.     All  the  myr- 


GOD  AND   COSMOS  347 

iad  forms  of  vegetable  growth  are  simply  the  chemicals 
of  nature  organized ;  and  in  the  organization  is  the  first 
stage  in  the  upward  gradation  manifest. 

The  chemical,  then,  for  the  vital ;  but  the  vital  is  not 
the  final.  Beyond  merely  organized  is  conscious  exist- 
ence. The  vegetable  has  clearly  a  raison  d'etre  in  the 
support  of  the  animal. 

But  beyond  conscious  life  is  self-conscious ;  we  reach 
another  and  a  higher  stage  when  we  come  to  man.  With 
him,  too,  terrestrial  being  culminates ;  and  for  him,  in 
some  sense,  all  below  him.  On  this  point  language  needs 
to  be  guarded.  It  is  not  pretended  that  the  lower  forms 
of  existence  have  no  end  save  the  service  of  man,  that 
the  world  is  ordered  in  contemplation  of  him  alone ;  and 
the  satire  of  Montaigne,  who  supposes  a  gosling  to  reason : 
"  All  the  parts  of  the  universe  regard  me ;  the  earth  serves 
me  for  walking ;  the  sun  to  give  me  light ;  the  stars  to 
inspire  me  with  their  influence ;  .  .  .  there  is  nothing  this 
vault  so  favorably  regards  as  me ;  I  am  the  darling  of 
nature,"  deals  fairly  with  such  pretension.  Yet  it  is  true, 
and  surely  no  Darwinian  should  dispute  it,  that  in  the 
hierarchy  of  terrestrial  being  man  stands  at  the  summit, 
and  hence,  in  the  providence  of  nature,  all  below  him 
must  be  for  him. 

These  are  the  cardinal  stages  of  gradation.  Probably 
few  feel  that  it  ends  here ;  indeed  his  vision  must  be 
strangely  defective  who  does  not  see  the  tokens  of  its 
continuance.  It  well  may  be  that  it  does  not  contem- 
plate a  transition  to  another  and  higher  form  of  terrestrial 
being ;  but  the  perfection  of  the  highest  that  now  is,  the 
progressive  realization  of  the  idea  of  a  divine  humanity,  — 
perfection  of  the  social  organism,  the  achievement  of  that 
kingdom  of  man  which  is  the  kingdom  of  God. 

Compared  with  the  amplitude  of  our  resources  these 
illustrations  seem  meagre.     However,  the   method  of  in- 


348  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

telligent  action  is  shown  through  them;  and  the  easily 
gathered  volume  of  the  like  illustrations  could  only  show 
it  more  fully,  not  more  clearly.  To  show  this  method, 
too,  is  of  great  practical  importance.  The  causal  argu- 
ment, though  never  so  fair,  would  fail  to  persuade  mul- 
titudes of  minds  could  some  Cuvier  or  Agassiz  declare: 
Useless  to  appeal  to  Nature ;  in  her  processes  is  no  selec- 
tion, no  combination,  no  gradation ;  so  far  as  can  be  seen 
she  works  without  method  and  to  no  end.  Dr.  Martineau, 
indeed,  would  not  be  discomfited ;  he  could  still  require 
us  to  accept  the  causal  argument  on  its  logical  validity, 
maintaining,  like  Descartes,  that  the  methods  of  God  are 
too  deep,  and  his  purposes  too  vast,  for  human  compre- 
hension. But  these  features,  met  so  widely  in  organic 
nature,  he  can  but  regard  as  ratifying  the  judgment  he 
has  reached  independently  of  them.  A  weakness  of  the 
old  Paleyan  doctrine  was  its  want  of  metaphysic ;  it  is 
the  peculiar  strength  of  Dr.  Martineau's  that  for  his  meta- 
physic he  finds  objective  verification.  The  argument  from 
the  causal  intuition  may  be  good,  and  the  marks  of  Intelli- 
gence may  be  plain ;  but  both  together  and  in  harmony 
are  better  than  either. 

But  though  the  central  principle  of  Dr.  Martineau's 
doctrine  is  safe  without  Design,  he  thinks  enough  of 
Design,  not  only  to  illustrate  it,  but  to  defend  it  against 
latter-day  objections.  These  objections  are  various,  but 
they  may  be  grouped  under  two  considerations,  drawn 
respectively  from  the  aspect  in  which  they  present  the 
Divine  Nature,  and  certain  troublesome  features  of  the 
outward  universe. 

I.  TJic  aspect  of  the  Divine  nature,  (i)  It  is  charged 
that  the  Design  argument  is  —  again  that  word  of  terror  — 
anthropomorphic.  It  assumes  the  action  of  God  after  the 
methods  of  our  own :  it  makes  God  man ;  and  against 
this  what  fervid  protestations !     There  is  an  element   of 


GOD   AND   COSMOS  349 

truth  in  this :  I  can  form  no  judgment  of  anything  save 
from  myself;  and  the  conception  of  any  nature  must 
be  outlined  from  my  own.  Try  any  other  conception 
of  the  Ultimate  Principle  than  that  of  mind,  and  see 
if  we  escape  this  necessity.  "  There  are,"  says  Dr.  Mar- 
tineau,  "  but  three  forms  under  which  it  is  possible  to 
think  of  the  ultimate  or  immanent  principle  of  the 
Universe,  —  Mind,  Life,  Matter:  given  the  first,  it  is 
intellectually  thought  out:  the  second,  it  blindly  grows: 
the  third,  it  mechanically  shuffles  into  equilibrium."  ^ 
The  question  presses,  How  much  more  liable  am  I  to  a 
vitiating  twist  from  my  own  nature  in  dealing  with  one 
of  these  conceptions  than  with  another?  It  is  because  I 
am  a  thinking  being  that  I  am  led  to  think  of  the 
Ultimate  Principle  as  thinking;  but  so  it  is  because  I  am 
a  living  being  that  I  think  of  it  as  living;  and  only  be- 
cause I  am  a  material  being  that  I  can  think  of  it  as 
material.  "  Man  is  equally  your  point  of  departure, 
whether  you  discern  in  the  cosmos  an  intellectual,  a  phys- 
iological or  a  mechanical  system :  and  the  only  question 
is  whether  you  construe  it  by  his  highest  characteristics, 
or  by  the  middle  attributes  which  he  shares  with  other 
organisms;  or  by  the  lowest,  that  are  absent  from  no 
physical  things."  ^  He  might  have  added  that  if,  because 
its  conception  is  formed  from  ourselves,  the  basal  princi- 
ple of  theology  must  be  given  up,  science  for  the  same 
reason  should  be  judged  untenable ;  and  a  Huxley,  de- 
crying Design  on  this  ground,  is  eaten  up  by  his  own 
logic.  Theological  conceptions,  like  all  others,  should  be 
judged  by  their  inherent  strength,  and  not  be  discredited 
in  advance  by  the  fact  that  it  is  a  human  mind  that  forms 
them. 

(2)   But  again,  it  is  held  that  this  mode  of  action,  essen- 
tial though  it  be  to  the  human  mind,  when  affirmed  of 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  316.  2  ji,jj^ 


350  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

God,  contradicts  his  attributes.  He  is  the  universal 
source,  we  say;  he  is  infinite;  he  is  eternal;  he  is 
absolute.  But  as  universal  source,  there  can  be  no  power 
beyond  him ;  as  infinite,  all  is  embraced  in  him ;  as 
eternal,  the  conditions  of  time  do  not  apply  to  him  ;  as 
absolute,  he  is  out  of  all  relation.  Designing,  on  the 
other  hand,  implies  selecting  and  contriving,  which  is 
transitive  action  and  implies  a  datum  objective  to  the 
selector  or  contriver.  But  a  "datum  objective  to  God" 
implies  that  all  is  not  embraced  in  him,  and  therefore  that 
he  is  not  infinite ;  as  a  designer,  he  enters  into  relations, 
so  he  cannot  be  absolute.  Design  seems  to  imply  a  dual- 
ism, —  God  and  a  datum  which  is  the  theatre  of  his 
activity;  while  these  attributes  call  for  one  Essence  to 
which,  since  in  itself  all,  nothing  can  be  objective ;  and 
what  seems  its  datum  can  be  only  its  phenomenon. 

Whether  we  are  dealing  here  with  the  supreme  problem 
of  philosophy  or  with  a  metaphysical  conundrum,  there 
may  be  difference  of  opinion.  On  both  sides,  however, 
the  dilemma  has  been  taken  seriously.  On  one  side 
pantheism  is  felt  to  annihilate  teleology ;  on  the  other 
teleology  is  saved  by  making  reservations  from  pantheism. 
A  profound  and  learned  writer  remarks  in  a  recent  book: 
"  Christian  theology,  and  Jewish  also,  have  been  as  pan- 
theistic as  reverent  reason  and  devout  common  sense 
would  permit  them  to  be."  ^  This  we  may  accept  as  true, 
and  still  be  confronted  by  the  question.  What  limits  to 
pantheism  do  reverent  reason  and  devout  common  sense 
prescribe?  For  answer  to  this  question,  we  may  quote 
a  few  compressed  sentences  from  Dr.  Martineau  :  "  There 
are  two  ways  of  taking  these  wonder-working  words :  the 
Infinite,  the  Absolute,  the  All-acting,  may  be  construed 
monistically,  as  embracing  and  absorbing  the  finite,  the 
relative,  the  passive;  or  dualistically,  as  antithetic  to  them 

1  Thomas  B.  Hill,  Postulates  of  Theology  and  Ethics,  p.  6i. 


GOD   AND    COSMOS  35  I 

and  implying  them  as  their  opposing  foci.  It  is  in  the 
latter  form  alone  .  .  .  that  they  are  given  to  our  thought: 
the  infinite  Avhich  we  cognize  as  the  background  of  a  finite 
is  all  except  the  thing:  the  absolute  is  the  sphere  of  the 
relation  we  contemplate,  so  far  forth  as  exempt  front  it : 
and  the  universal  causality  is  apprehended  by  us  only  as 
that  which  is  other  than  our  own,  and  planted  out  in  the 
non-ego,  without  displacing  our  personal  activity.  In  all 
these  cases,  our  thought  holds  on  to  a  definite  locus 
whence  its  survey  is  taken  oi  all  else:  it  sails  in  its  little 
skiff  and  looks  forth  on  the  illimitable  sea  and  the  great 
circles  of  the  sky,  and  finds  two  things  alone  with  one 
another,  the  universe  and  itself:  the  metaphysicians  who, 
in  their  impatience  of  distinction,  insist  on  taking  the  sea  on 
board  the  boat,  swamp  not  only  it  but  the  thought  it  holds, 
and  leave  an  infinitude  which,  as  it  can  look  into  no  eye 
and  whisper  into  no  ear,  they  contradict  in  the  very  act  of 
affirming.  Now,  when  kept  true  to  their  antithetic  mean- 
ing, these  terms  no  longer  lend  themselves  to  the  easy 
magic  of  negation.  If  we  have  causality  as  well  as  God, 
there  is  room  for  saying,  this  sin  is  ours,  that  rebuke  is  his. 
If  for  him,  as  Omniscient  subject,  there  are  objects  of  knowl- 
edge that  have  been,  are,  and  will  be,  they  must  be  present 
to  his  mind  in  their  distinctions,  their  connexions,  their  con- 
sequences :  and  that  which  in  us  is  memory  and  foresight, 
and  apprehension  of  rational  relations,  must  have  some 
intellectual  equivalent  in  him.  If,  besides  himself,  there 
exist,  in  a  sphere  left  free,  living  persons  for  his  Love, 
there  are  innumerable  definite  and  variable  lines  of  selec- 
tive movement  on  which  that  love  may  go  forth ;  nor 
need  we  scruple  to  think  of  it  as  carrying  shadows  as 
well  as  lights,  and  as  hid  in  eclipse  from  our  unfaith- 
fulness, though  ready  to  warm  us  again  when  we  emerge. 
An  infinite  of  which  these  attributes  must  be  denied 
would   only  be   inferior  to   a  finite  being  of  whom  they 


352  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

might  be  affirmed ;  and  where  the  boundary  between  the 
human  and  the  Divine  so  gradually  fades,  an  intellectual, 
moral,  and  affectional  fulness  of  conception  will  secure 
more  truth  than  the  most  spacious  metaphysical  void, 
where  names  alone  can  float  without  a  meaning  or  a 
home."  ^  This  weighty  judgment  let  him  answer  who 
is  able. 

(3)  But  objection  takes  another  form.  It  is  urged  that 
Design  not  merely  abridges  the  infinitude  of  God,  but 
otherwise  carries  a  denial  of  his  perfection.  Designing 
implies  discriminating  and  contriving;  the  laborious  pro- 
cesses of  intelligence,  not  spontaneity  of  action.  Spinoza 
held  that  working  for  an  end  was  confession  of  need ; 
Mill  contended  that  the  use  of  means  implied  a  want  of 
power:  the  engineer,  whether  constructing  a  railway  or 
a  universe,  confesses  the  difficulties  of  his  task  by  the 
expedients  he  employs.  How  much  worthier  of  God  is 
the  thought  of  the  world  as  unpremeditated  and  simply 
unfolding  from  him. 

This  has  a  specious  sound ;  but  reverent  reason  and 
devout  common  sense  have  reply:  As  the  heavens  are 
higher  than  the  earth,  so  are  his  ways  higher  than  our 
ways,  and  his  thoughts  than  our  thoughts ;  and  this  truth 
must  rule  our  conception  of  the  Divine  activity.  It  can- 
not imply,  however,  that  his  ways  are  not  ways,  in  some 
sense  congruous  with  our  sense,  nor  that  his  thoughts 
are  not  thoughts.  Though  infinitely  beyond  ours,  ours 
may  be  a  means  by  which  we  may  analogically  con- 
ceive them.  Grant  our  conception  inadequate,  yet  not 
for  that  reason  need  we  think  it  untrue.  But  change 
the  point  of  view,  and  bestow  a  closer  look  upon  this 
Being  who  thinks  not,  wills  not,  but  ever  acts  from  his 
own  centre,  not  freely  but  as  he  must,  —  is  such  a  being 
so  far  exalted  above  one  who  designs  and  executes?     Is 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  pp.  320-321. 


GOD   AND   COSMOS  353 

the  being  of  whom  this  universe  is  the  only  possible  uni- 
verse more  august  than  a  being  to  whom  it  is  only  one  of 
infinite  possibilities?  Is  the  absolutely  perfect  being  one 
who  can  do  no  other  than  he  does?  Strange  inversion  of 
the  natural  order  of  estimate,  this  placing  of  the  non-intel- 
ligent above  the  intelligent,  the  necessitated  above  the 
free,  —  adding  to  the  glory  of  God  by  discrowning  him! 
If  this  inversion  of  natural  estimate  be  necessary  in  order 
that  we  may  not  be  anthropomorphic,  let  us  be  content 
with  anthropomorphism. 

The  objection  that  Design  is  irreconcilable  with  ac- 
knowledged attributes  of  God  is  thus  variously  answered. 
It  is  not  pretended  that  all  is  plain ;  we  have  before  us  a 
transcendent  problem,  in  dealing  with  which  only  he  who 
thinks  little  shall  be  sensible  of  no  difficulties.  But  this 
seems  clear,  that  the  conception  of  a  God  of  whom  Design 
is  predicable  leads  into  difficulties  far  less  grave  than  any 
competing  one.  There  is  one  structure  of  the  argument 
from  Design  in  which  the  implied  Designer  is  not  so  easy 
to  receive,  that  built  upon  the  conception  of  a  God  outside 
of  and  apart  from  the  universe.  The  doctrine  itself  we 
should  probably  find  it  easier  to  surrender  than  to  em- 
brace its  Deistical  implication.  But  while  this  objection 
may  be  valid  as  against  the  teachings  of  the  earlier  Paley- 
anSj.  it  has  no  relevancy  in  a  consideration  of  Dr.  MartT- 
neau.  Edward  Caird  speaks  of  Dr.  Martineau  as  in  accord 
with  Jacobi  when  he  affirms  that  "  a  God  immanent  in  the  'v^ 
world  is  no  God  at  all,"  ^  which  is  a  complete  inversion  of 
Dr.  Martineau's  clearest  teaching.  "Why  not  inside?"  he 
asks.  "  What  hinders  a  ubiquitous  indwelling  power  from 
consciously  taking  such  lines  of  direction,  such  modes  and 
proportions  of  activity,  as  may  realize  a  system  of  pre- 
conceived  ends?"^      He  quotes   from   Aristotle:    "Plant 

1  The  Evolution  of  Reli^on,  vol.  ii.  p.  8.    I  find  that  Professor  Caird  with- 
drew this  statement  in  the  second  edition  of  his  work. 

2  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  328. 

23 


354  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

the  ship-builder's  skill  within  the  timber  itself,  and  you 
have  the  mode  in  which  Nature  produces."  "  Theism  "  he 
declares  to  be  "  in  no  way  committed  to  the  doctrine  of  a 
God  external  to  the  world,"  but  "  at  liberty  to  regard  all 
the  cosmical  forces  as  varieties  of  method  assumed  by  his 
conscious  causality,  and  the  whole  of  Nature  as  the  evolu- 
tion of  his  thought."  ^  His  presence  is  the  consecration 
of  the  universe ;  and  as  reverently  as  Wordsworth  might 
he  tell  of  One 

"  Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns." 

Of  this  view  there  is  something  yet  to  be  said.  Enough 
for  the  present  to  show  that  the  Deistical  conception  of  an 
"  absentee  God  "  is  wholly  foreign  to  his  thought. 

2.  Troublesome  features  of  the  oiitwaj'd  universe.  These 
Dr.  Martineau  considers  in  elaborate  detail.  Alphonso, 
King  of  Castile,  wished  he  had  been  present  at  the  Crea- 
tion that  he  might  hav^e  given  good  advice ;  critics  of 
Design  seem  often  in  a  like  attitude  of  mind.  If  there 
was  a  Creator,  to  their  minds  he  bungled  badly.  Select 
specimens  of  Nature,  they  say,  may  suggest  Intelligence ; 
but  phenomena  in  a  wide  survey  bear  in  upon  us  the 
reverse  conclusion. 

Even  the  more  general  features  of  the  earth  invite  their 
criticism.  They  are  displeased  with  the  polar  regions ;  of 
what  use  those  icy  realms?  They  are  dissatisfied  with  the 
equator;  to  what  end  its  blasting  heats?  They  are  criti- 
cal of  deserts  and  mountain  systems;  why  Mohave  and 
Sahara?  why  Alps  and  Himalaya?  In  what  aspect  of 
these  phenomena  is  Intelligence  manifest?  To  take  the 
critic's  attitude  and  give  specific  answers  might  often  be 
difficult.  Both  polar  and  equatorial  regions  are  unsuit- 
able for  human  habitation,  and  deserts  and  mountains 
are    barriers    to    the    intercourse    of   men.      Still    in    the 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  3 28. 


GOD   AND   COSMOS  355 

vast  economy  of  the  earth  they  may  have  their  place. 
Could  we  warm  the  poles,  cool  the  equator,  grade  the 
mountains,  and  make  the  desert  blossom,  should  we  surely 
work  improvement?  Had  we  been  present  at  the  Crea- 
tion with  these  suggestions,  should  we  certainly  have 
given  good  advice?  Is  it  not  possible  that  the  Creator 
might  have  successfully  maintained  that  a  world  upon  his 
plan  were  preferable ;  that  in  a  law-ruled  system,  such  as 
he  had  in  view,  poles  and  tropics  and  mountain  and 
desert  were  quite  indispensable?  The  critics,  too,  of 
the  solar  system,  who  want  a  full  moon  all  the  time, 
and  find  the  nights  of  Saturn  much  too  long,  and  space 
too  sparsely  populated  with  stars,  and  the  sun  wastefully 
casting  his  heat  where  are  no  worlds  to  warm,  and  ether 
undulating  where  are  no  eyes  to  see,  might  perhaps  be 
met  with  the  like  consideration.  Could  they,  present 
at  the  Creation,  have  seen  the  scope  of  the  Creator's 
purpose,  perhaps  they  would  have  felt  no  need  to  revise 
his  plan. 

But  pass  to  organic  nature.  Are  there  no  facts  en- 
countered here  irreconcilable  with  our  thesis?  The  Intel- 
ligence we  maintain  will  do  nothing  without  purpose ;  how 
account,  then,  for  rudimentary  organs  which  have  clearly 
no  use  in  the  animal  economy?  The  opponents  of  De- 
sign have  made  much  of  these,  too  much  by  far.  We 
grant  the  dictionary  a  work  of  intelligence ;  how  explain 
the  silent  letters  in  such  multitudes  of  words?  You  say 
there  was  a  time  when  they  were  not  silent,  that  it  was  only 
as  language  changed  and  developed  that  they  became  so. 
The  silent  letter,  then,  is  charged  with  the  history  of  the 
word,  showing  its  origin  in  some  foreign  or  some  ancient 
tongue.  Rudimentary  organs  may  well  be  as  these  silent 
letters,  witnesses  of  an  earlier  stage  in  the  unfolding  life  of 
the  organism.  Spelling  reformers  would  have  us  drop  all 
silent  letters ;  and  critics  of  Design  would  hold  the  Intelli- 


356  JAMES  martinEau 

gence  of  nature  to  an  analogous  procedure ;  cancel,  that 
is,  an  organ  when  it  ceases  to  be  of  use  to  the  organism. 
But  thus  one  of  the  records  of  its  history  would  be  de- 
stroyed, and  how  in  this  procedure  the  clearer  intelli- 
gence would  be  manifest  it  is  difficult  to  see.  When  Dr. 
Martineau  tells  us  that  "  Nature,  far  from  being  utilitarian 
only,  is  ideal  too;  and  in  setting  up  each  single  life  takes 
but  one  step  of  a  long  history,  and  pursues  an  old  type 
into  new  and  modified  exemplifications,"  ^  he  describes  a 
method  of  action  seemingly  not  dissonant  with,  but  clearly 
accordant  with.  Intelligence.  On  the  supposition  of  Intel- 
ligence, wherefore  should  it  be  otherwise  ? 

But  we  are  told  not  only  of  useless  organs,  but  of  very 
imperfect  ones.  The  bee  in  the  use  of  its  one  weapon  may 
kill  itself:  its  sting  is  so  constructed  that  in  endeavoring  to 
withdraw  it  from  a  body  into  which  he  has  thrust  it  he  may 
tear  it  from  his  own.  Some  one  suggests  that  a  war  vessel 
whose  guns  could  not  be  fired  without  the  shattering  of  its 
hull  would  hardly  win  our  admiration  for  the  intelligence 
of  its  construction ;  and  the  case  of  the  bee  may  be 
analogous.  However,  all  things  for  their  use ;  and  Dr, 
Martineau  shows  very  plainly  that  however  the  bee  may 
lose  its  sting  in  the  more  solid  flesh  of  men  and  animals,  it 
does  not  follow  that  it  does  so  in  plunging  it  into  the  bodies 
of  other  bees  with  which  its  chief  warfares  are  conducted. 
No  one  disparages  his  fist  because  it  cannot  serve  the  pur- 
poses of  a  sledge-hammer,  nor  his  head  because  for  a  cer- 
tain peculiar  use  a  he-goat's  were  the  better ;  and  the  war 
vessel  that  should  shatter  its  prow  in  an  effort  to  ride  down 
Gibraltar  would  witness,  not  the  non-intelligence  of  its 
builder,  but  of  its  commander.  Though  it  fail  in  manifold 
misapplications,  it  is  enough  to  show  the  intelligent  con- 
struction of  an  organ  that  it  serves  its  intended  uses. 

Further  than  this  we  have  no  space  to  illustrate.     Two 

^  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  p.  335. 


GOD   AND   COSMOS  357 

Other  considerations,  often  pressed  by  critics  of  Design, 
(i)  excessive  birth-rate,  so  marked  in  all  lower  organisms 
and  rarely  absent  from  the  higher,  involving  (2)  a  corre- 
sponding death-rate  with  the  cutting  off  of  such  multitudes 
of  all  species  ere  the  fulfilment  of  their  promise,  have  been 
pressed  with  much  earnestness  by  thinkers  unfriendly  to 
teleology.  These  Dr.  Martineau  reviews  cogently  and 
triumphantly ;  but  we  must  be  content  to  refer  the  reader 
to  his  illuminating  page.^ 

No  teleologist  pretends  that  organic  nature  opposes  no 
difficulty  to  his  theory,  that  turn  where  he  may  all  is  lumi- 
nous with  purpose.  On  the  contrary,  he  is  like  one  stand- 
ing under  a  clouded  sky,  to  whom  only  a  rift  here  and 
there  makes  manifest  a  light  beyond.  The  marks  of  intel- 
ligence that  he  finds  give  full  assurance  that  Intelligence  is 
there ;  and  where  he  cannot  see  a  meaning  he  is  assured 
that  it  is  because  its  scope  is  too  vast  or  the  hieroglyph  too 
intricate.  Of  the  much  light  he  seeks  there  is  but  little  he 
can  gain ;  but  a  little  is  how  much  when  a  little  of  God ! 
So  he  turns  from  his  assurance  that  the  world  of  his  philos- 
ophy and  the  world  of  his  experience  are  in  harmony. 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  i.  pp.  346-357. 


CHAPTER   III 

GOD  AND   CONSCIENCE 

Thus  far  Dr.  Martineau  studies  the  theistic  problem  in  the 
light  of  the  intellectual  categories  only.  His  question  is 
the  race-old  question  as  to  the  origin  of  things.  He  seizes 
upon  the  idea  of  cause,  and  in  this  finds  his  clue  to  the 
great  argument.  Cause  is  only  possible  through  the  exer- 
cise of  force;  force  is  only  interpretable  in  terms  of  will; 
will  is  the  executive  function  of  intelligence.  Thus  by  a 
purely  metaphysical  argument  he  shows  that  the  system  of 
things  has  no  rational  explanation  that  does  not  imply  a 
Divine  Intelligence.  Having  done  this,  however,  he  casts 
his  glance  abroad,  and  the  Intelligence  his  philosophy  de- 
mands is  manifest  in  the  structure  of  the  world. 

Thus  he  establishes  the  first  part  of  his  great  thesis,  "  a 
Divine  Mind  and  Will  ruling  the  Universe."  This  conclu- 
sion, however,  we  might  reach  were  we  well  developed 
Calibans  only,  beings  of  a  high  order  of  intelligence  but 
without  moral  sensibility.  There  is,  however,  in  man  a 
moral  sensibility,  which  makes  him  something  widely  dif- 
ferent from  a  well-developed  Caliban ;  and  this  sensibility 
Dr.  Martineau  accords  an  independent  hearing  in  the  settle- 
ment of  the  theistic  problem.  Through  this  he  reaches  a 
justification  of  the  second  part  of  his  thesis,  "  a  Divine 
Mind  and  Will  holding  Moral  relations  with  ma^ikindy 
That  is  to  say,  he  finds  not  only  a  Supreme  Mind  in  the 
universe,  but  a  Supreme  Righteousness.  His  method  of 
procedure  in  the  second  stadium  of  his  argument  is  the 


GOD   AND   CONSCIENCE  359 

same  as  in  the  first :  as  in  the  earHer  investigation  he  first 
sought  the  significance  of  the  causal  idea,  and  then  its  rati- 
fication in  the  universe,  so  in  the  later  he  unfolds  the  tes- 
timony of  the  moral  consciousness,  and  then  asks  if  the 
constitution  of  nature  and  the  experience  of  man  are  ac- 
cordant with  it.  This  order  of  study  we  will  make  our 
own. 

I.    TJie  Moral  Intuition 

In  the  presentation  of  his  ethical  doctrines  Dr.  Mar- 
tineau  compares  two  criteria  of  judgment.  They  are 
Prudence  and  Conscience.  Prudence,  as  he  shows,  is  our 
regulative  principle  in  deciding  upon  the  utilities  of  con- 
duct; Conscience,  our  light  and  guide  in  settling  between 
conflicting  motives.  The  former  appoints  for  our  welfare  ; 
the  latter  for  our  character.  Prudence  decides :  This 
course  were  wiser,  more  useful,  more  expedient,  than  that. 
It  is  the  monitor  of  merchant,  teacher,  statesman,  of  min- 
ister, moralist,  and  philanthropist,  in  the  choice  of  means 
for  the  realization  of  desired  ends.  Conscience  decides: 
This  course  were  higher,  worthier,  nobler  than  that.  It  is 
a  goad  to  the  duty  our  indolence  might  shirk,  our  stay 
when  a  seductive  evil  hovers  near  us.  The  contrast  be- 
tween them  may  be  more  clearly  seen  through  illustration. 
Shall  I  buy  a  piece  of  land?  This  question  I  answer 
rightly  enough  by  reference  to  my  circumstances,  my 
tastes,  my  future  aims.  Shall  I  pay  my  debts,  right  a 
wrong,  speak  the  truth,  be  just,  charitable,  humane?  Here 
I  am  called  to  another  judgment.  I  clearly  see  that  hon- 
esty is  higher  than  dishonesty,  that  righting  the  wrong 
is  nobler  than  leaving  it  unrighted,  that  truthfulness  is 
worthier  than  untruthfulness,  and  charity  than  unchari- 
tableness,  and  humanity  than  cruelty.  Seeing  this  higher, 
too,  I  recognize  myself  as  bound  to  it.  Within  me  is  a 
voice  that  says,  "  Thus  do,  thus  do."     This  voice  has  not 


360  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

the  tone  of  Prudence.  Though  I  could  see  that  the  lower 
deed  would  enhance  my  welfare,  and  involve  no  forfeit  of 
esteem,  still  were  there  that  solemn  admonition.  It  is  not 
the  Categorical  Imperative,  as  commonly  stated  :  "  Act  as 
if  the  maxim  of  thy  will  were  to  become,  by  thy  adopting 
it,  a  universal  law  of  nature ;  "  it  is  more  solemn,  more 
imperative  than  this.  It  bears  in  upon  me  the  sense  of  an 
Eternal  Rectitude,  my  allegiance  to  which  I  am  summoned 
then  and  there  to  witness. 

Moreover,  in  the  consequences  that  follow  upon  disobe- 
dience of  this  admonition  there  is  pertinent  suggestion. 
In  purchasing  the  land  it  is  possible  that  I  may  act  un- 
wisely, but  at  worst  my  error  brings  me  only  regret,  my 
self-accusation  is  only  that  I  was  improvident  or  a  fool; 
and  through  the  misadventure  my  Prudence  may  gain  a 
sharper  eye.  When,  however,  in  the  presence  of  a  higher 
part  I  have  chosen  a  lower,  the  feeling  is  far  other.  Then 
it  is  shame,  guilt,  remorse,  a  feeling  appropriate  to  con- 
scious offence  against  a  majesty  that  has  rightful  command 
of  me.  Further,  the  terms  in  which  I  judge  myself  when, 
self-sophistication  put  by,  I  review  my  conduct  with  judi- 
cial mind,  are  accordant  only  with  this  order  of  feehng. 
Do  I  see  that  mine  has  been  an  act  of  treachery,  that  I 
have  been  unfaithful  to  a  trust,  abused  a  confidence,  be- 
trayed a  friend?  I  cannot  say  that  I  was  mistaken;  I  can 
dut  say  I  was  base.  However  forgiveness  may  be  prof- 
fered me,  and  however  sympathy  may  bring  palliatives  to 
my  smart,  the  sense  of  ignominy  persistently  and  defiantly 
abides.  Even  time,  which  heals  so  many  wounds,  is  not 
gentle  with  us  here,  but  stamps  a  record  where  we  would 
invoke  oblivion.  The  improvidences  of  youth  we  look  back 
upon  complacently  enough;  the  memories  of  even  graver 
blunders  and  mistakes  may  bring  a  smile  upon  our  lips, 
and  in  the  circle  of  our  friends  we  may  lightly  tell  the  tale 
of  them.     But  if  there  lie  in  memory  a  shameful  deed ;   if 


GOD   AND   CONSCIENCE  36 1 

at  any  time  we  have  been  dishonest,  false,  selfish,  vile, 
cruel,  tyrannical ;  in  proportion  as  our  nature  is  unper- 
verted,  it  comes  back  to  us  with  a  sense  of  degradation. 
In  all  such  cases  it  is  not  my  judgment  I  disparage,  but  my- 
self I  condemn.  Our  feeling  and  our  language  alike  imply 
the  distinction  which  Dr.  Martineau  is  wont  to  make  so 
impressive,  that  in  the  "  issues  "  of  conduct  we  are  wise  or 
foohsh;  in  its  "springs"  we  do  righteously  or  sin.  Again, 
the  reaction  of  our  conduct  upon  ourselves  ratifies  the 
solemn  distinction.  In  the  triumphs  of  our  Prudence  we 
win  success  and  good  reputation,  in  its  defeats  we  experi- 
ence discomfiture  and  chagrin ;  but  in  the  one  case  there 
is  no  exaltation,  in  the  other  no  humiliation  of  our  nature ; 
and  how  often  through  the  tuition  of  our  blunders  we  learn 
the  way  to  our  nobler  successes.  In  our  obedience  and 
disobedience,  however,  it  is  wholly  otherwise.  While  we 
obey,  choosing  in  every  alternative  the  higher,  albeit  the 
harder  part,  new  strength  accrues  to  us ;  our  way  is  one  of 
dignity  and  composure ;  however  we  may  be  frowned  upon 
without,  there  is  approval  within ;  and  we  gain  a  nobler 
poise  from  the  very  cross  we  bear.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  there  anything  that  so  overturns  and  demoralizes 
and  destroys  as  disobedience?  Not  only  does  it  entail  a 
sense  of  shame  and  guilt,  which  in  earlier  stages  may  be 
remedial,  but  the  tension  of  the  upward  wing  is  relaxed ; 
the  resisting  power  of  the  will  is  enfeebled ;  ideals  are 
dimmed.  Human  experience  is  illustrated  in  the  fortunes 
of  the  soul  of  Plato's  speculation,  which,  victorious  in  its 
struggles  with  the  lower  passions  and  desires,  was  rewarded 
with  strains  of  music  low  and  soft  and  ravishing,  floating 
down  from  the  spheres,  its  preincarnate  abode ;  and  grow- 
ing ever  distincter  and  more  ravishing  as  the  soul  went  on 
from  victory  to  victory,  until,  its  earthly  conquests  ended, 
it  reascended  to  its  spheral  home.  Suffering  itself,  how- 
ever, to  be  defeated,  the  spheral  music  was  denied  it,  the 


362  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

memory  of  its  home  became  less  distinct,  and  it  sunk  down 
into  lower  and  lower  incarnations,  lost  to  its  beauty  and  its 
joy.  This  varied  experience,  too,  we  should  take  care  to 
remember,  is  in  the  largest  sense  human.  Were  it  peculiar 
to  a  race  or  nation,  were  it  the  flower  of  culture  or  the 
blossom  of  civilization,  our  view  of  it  would  be  entirely 
different.  It  may  be  narrower  or  broader  in  its  range  as 
life  has  fewer  or  more  relations ;  but  as  the  loftiest  natures 
are  never  above  it,  so  the  lowliest,  provided  they  are  dis- 
tinctly human,  are  never  below  it.  In  the  natural  order  of 
things  this  sense  of  nobler  and  baser,  with  its  implied 
moral  allegiance,  develops  as  man  develops,  penetrates  his 
being  more  profoundly,  and  takes  hold  upon  him  more 
enthralllngly  the  higher  he  rises.  Accordingly,  our  chief 
moral  revulsion  is  not  experienced  when  we  contemplate 
the  barbarisms  of  mining  camps  or  the  brawls  of  city 
alleys,  but  that  corruptio  optimi  pessima  presented  us  in  a 
drunken  Webster,  a  treacherous  Bacon,  a  licentious  Goethe  ; 
the  height  from  which  they  have  plunged  witnessing  the 
clearer  light  that  they  have  disowned. 

Whence  comes  this  inward  voice?  There  pertains  to 
the  nature  of  man  no  profounder  truth  ;  and  a  just  account 
of  it  must  be  of  weighty  significance  both  to  morals  and  to 
faith.  The  answers  to  our  question  are  various  and  plausi- 
ble. It  may  be  useful  for  us  to  examine  them  one  by  one, 
casting  out  such  as  are  found  untenable.  By  thus  reduc- 
ing the  number  of  hypotheses,  we  may  at  length  come  to 
one  which,  all  competitors  discredited  and  itself  not  in- 
congruous with  the  facts  of  experience,  may  claim  our 
acceptance.  This  is  the  method  of  Dr.  Martineau  in 
his  wonderful  chapter  on  God  in  Humanity}  which  we 
shall  somewhat  irregularly  follow;  also  in  his  exposition 
of  the  same  theme  in  the  great  Study  of  Religion?' 

1  Seat  of  Authority  in  Religion,  chap.  ii. 

2  Vol.  ii.  pp.  1-39. 


GOD   AND    CONSCIENCE  363 

I.  While,  to  discriminate  its  function,  we  have  placed 
Conscience  in  contrast  with  Prudence,  we  are  brought 
now  to  remember  that  there  are  those  who  hold  that  these 
twain  are  one,  and  that  that  one  is  Prudence.  Conscience, 
that  is,  they  explain  as  a  reflection  of  Prudence.  Man 
ever  acts,  as  they  maintain,  with  reference  to  ends ;  which 
must  always  be  in  some  form  his  pleasure,  happiness,  wel- 
fare. This  fact  they  hold  no  more  patent  in  the  quest 
of  money  or  fame  than  in  the  discharge  of  duty  or  the 
pursuit  of  character  or  holiness.  The  inward  monition 
which  we  have  described,  they  explain  as  a  reaching  after 
a  nobler  pleasure,  or,  what  comes  to  the  same  thing,  a 
desire  for  exemption  from  a  bitterer  pain.  This  is  Ben- 
tham's  doctrine.  "  Nature,"  he  tells  us,  "  has  placed 
mankind  under  the  governance  of  two  sovereign  masters, 
pain  and  pleasure.  It  is  for  them  alone  to  point  out  what 
we  ought  to  do,  as  well  as  to  determine  what  we  shall  do. 
On  the  one  hand  the  standard  of  right  and  wrong,  on  the 
other  the  chain  of  causes  and  effects,  are  fastened  to  their 
throne."  ^  John  Stuart  Mill  also  tells  us  that  "  happiness  is 
the  sole  end  of  human  action,  and  the  promotion  of  it  the 
test  by  which  to  judge  all  human  conduct;"  also  that 
"  those  who  desire  virtue  for  its  own  sake,  desire  it  either 
because  the  consciousness  of  it  is  a  pleasure,  or  because 
the  consciousness  of  being  without  it  is  a  pain,  or  for  both 
reasons  united."  ^  This  Hedonism  might  almost  persuade, 
and  very  likely  has  persuaded  many,  by  the  vigor  of  its 
proclamation.     Considering  its  high  sources,  however,  it 

1  Quoted  by  Dr.  Martineau,  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  58. 

2  Ibid.  Over  against  this  doctrine  there  is  temptation  to  place  the  dictum 
of  John  Henry  Newman :  "  All  virtue  and  goodness  tend  to  make  men 
powerful  in  this  world;  but  they  who  aim  at  the  power  have  not  the  virtue. 
Again,  virtue  is  its  own  reward,  and  brings  with  it  the  truest  and  highest 
pleasure  ;  but  they  who  cultivate  it  for  the  pleasure's  sake  are  selfish,  not 
religious,  and  will  never  gain  the  pleasure,  because  they  can  never  have  the 
virtue." 


364  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

is  simply  astonishing  that  it  should  be  put  forth  so  unquali- 
fiedly. Grant  that  considerations  of  pleasure  and  pain 
have  much  to  do  with  our  conduct;  it  is  psychologically 
absurd  to  say  that  they  rule  us  in  the  instinctive  period  of 
life,  ere  a  distinction  of  ends  has  dawned  upon  us.  During 
this  period  we  simply  act  from  inner  incentives,  with  no 
perception  whatever  of  the  consequences  to  which  they 
urge  us.  Doubtless  the  infant  finds  pleasure  in  its  activi- 
ties, as  the  kitten  in  its  frolic  and  the  colt  in  its  gambol ; 
but  this  is  simply  because  to  act  from  an  interior  impulse 
gives  pleasure,  and  not  at  all  because  pleasure  is  the  aim 
of  its  action.  Thus,  in  the  beginning  of  life  our  sovereign 
is  within,  and  he  admits  no  rival  and  takes  no  counsel. 
When  we  come  to  the  self-conscious  stage,  does  he  ab- 
dicate his  throne?  Because  a  perception  of  ends  is  now 
possible  to  us,  do  the  "  springs  "  of  conduct  cease  from 
their  initiatives?  Not  so  to  the  observant  mind  of  Dr. 
Martineau ;  rather,  they  treat  the  wisdom  that  has  now 
come  as  a  servant  to  execute  their  behests.  "  Pleasure  is, 
in  fact,"  says  he,  "  the  fruit,  and  not  the  germ,  of  the 
several  types  of  natural  activity:  it  is  simply  the  satis- 
faction of  reaching  their  various  ends,  and,  but  for  their 
existence  first,  could  never  itself  arise  afterwards."  ^  Else- 
where, meeting  the  same  issue,  he  writes :  "  Neither  in 
human  consciousness,  nor  in  the  phenomena  of  animal  life, 
is  there  the  slightest  ground  for  assigning  priority  to  the 
self-seeking  desires,  and  treating  all  extra-regarding  affec- 
tions as  derivative  from  them.  Instead  of  admitting  that 
pleasure  sets  up  all  our  springs  of  action,  I  affirm  that  the 
springs  of  action  set  up  all  our  pleasures."^  But  when, 
beyond  the  instinctive  period,  we  begin  to  forecast  and 
select  our  way,  then  considerations  of  pleasure  and  pain 
have  an  extensive  sway  with  us.     So  far,  however,  as  ruled 

1  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  5cS. 

2  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  pp.  12-13. 


GOD   AND    CONSCIENCE  365 

by  them,  we  simply  act  from  Prudence,  such  as  we  might 
manifest  were  we  simply  wise,  all  sense  of  moral  dis- 
tinction being  denied  us.  Here  Dr.  Martineau  holds  to 
be  the  limit  beyond  which  the  "  governance  "  declared  by 
Bentham  to  be  universal  "  can  never  be  carried ; "  and 
he  declares  that  unless  character  is  "without  any  higher 
region  where  self-regards  can  breathe  no  more,  the 
sceptre  of  pleasure  meets  here  the  frontier  of  its  sway,  and 
carries  no  prerogative  into  the  proper  territory  of  duty."^ 
For  this  reason  this  branch  of  the  utilitarian  argument  he 
dismisses  as  utterly  untenable.  Consciousness  pronounces 
against  it  with  an  emphasis  that  cannot  be  discarded.  The 
voice  that  speaks  through  it  is  sovereign,  not  ministerial, 
in  its  tone ;  it  comes  from  the  Sinai  within  the  breast, 
not  with  admonition.  This  were  inexpedient  and  that 
were  wise,  but  with  solemn  command,  Thou  shalt  not 
and  Thou  shalt.  There  is,  however,  another  application 
of  utilitarian  doctrine,  which  demands  a  word.  It  is  that 
associated  with  the  name  of  Paiey.  It  has  an  eye  to 
consequences,  but  those  consequences  are  heaven  and 
hell.  Without  the  emphasis  of  these,  so  Paley  argues, 
pledging  to  holiness  its  reward  and  to  sin  its  penalty,  this 
inward  voice  would  speak  with  no  authority.  Though  the 
doctrine  is  Paleyan,  it  is  also  very  modern,  and  is  pro- 
claimed from  many  a  pulpit.  Arguing  from  the  analogy 
of  human  government,  it  is  maintained  that  the  Righteous- 
ness of  the  universe  is  without  authority  unless  there  is 
provided  for  disobedience  a  penal  retribution.  What 
significance  would  attach  to  law  without  a  prison,  or  to 
the  moral  law  without  hell?  This  Dr.  Martineau  finds  a 
thoroughgoing  misapprehension  of  authority,  "  dispensing 
with  its  essence,  and  insisting  on  its  appendages."  "  Are 
we,  then,"  he  asks,  "to  say,  that  if  there  were  no  pains  of 
hell,  and  joys  of  heaven,  there  would  be  no  duty  binding 

1  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  59. 


366  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

upon  men?  and  that,  while  the  call  and  the  compunctions 
of  conscience  remain,  duty  can  cease  to  be?  "  His  conten- 
tion rather  is  that  "  it  is  the  external  sufferings,  wherever 
placed  in  time,  which  it  rests  with  us,  in  simple  prudence 
or  imprudence,  to  meet  or  to  decline ;  and  it  is  the  internal 
appeal  for  preference,  and  remorse  for  rejection,  which  it 
may  be  in  our  power,  but  is  never  in  our  right,  to  tamper 
with  by  likings  of  our  own.  Whatever  impressiveness  there 
is  in  the  prospective  retribution  belongs  to  it,  not  as  a 
sentient  expectation,  but  as  a  moral  award.  Strip  it  of  its 
ethical  significance,  and  reduce  it  to  a  naked  affection  of 
the  sensitive  nature;  turn  it  from  an  emblem  of  justice 
to  an  arbitrary,  though  calculable,  physical  experience,  — 
and  all  its  solemnity  is  gone."  ^ 

Thus  the  utilitarian  explanation  of  moral  authority  fails. 
Utilitarianism  speaks  in  terms  of  pleasure  and  pain,  of 
wisdom  and  foolishness,  of  advantage  and  disadvantage; 
this  voice  speaks  in  terms  of  right  and  wrong:  it  uses 
the  great  words  "  ought,"  "  duty,"  "  obligation  ;  "  and,  strive 
as  we  may,  we  cannot  deduce  the  latter  from  the  former. 
Though  the  problem  has  been  attempted  by  some  of  the 
best  intellects  of  the  world,  no  safe  passage  has  ever  yet 
been  opened  from  the  prudential  to  the  ought.  Even 
Mill,  whose  splendid  essay  on  Utilitarianism  is  the  most 
persuasive  exposition  of  this  doctrine,  repudiated  it  ut- 
terly in  his  memorable  outburst:  "I  will  call  no  being 
good,  who  is  not  what  I  mean  when  I  apply  that  epithet 
to  my  fellow-creatures;  and,  if  such  a  being  can  sentence 
me  to  hell  for  not  so  calling  him,  to  hell  I  will  go."  ^  Cer- 
tainly it  is  wise  to  do  right,  and  he  plays  the  fool  who 
does  wrong;  but  this  is  because  the  constitution  of  things 
is  such  that  our  better  destiny  is  involved  with  our 
obedience, 

1  Seat  of  Authority,  pp.  60-61. 

2  Examination  of  Hamilton,  vol.  ii.  p.  131. 


GOD    AND    CONSCIENCE  367 

2.    But  grant  that  in  utility  wc  cannot  find  the  source 
of  this  authority,  may  we  not  find  it  in  ourselves? 

"  Our  little  lives  are  held  in  equipoise 
By  opposite  attractions  and  desires, 
The  struggle  of  the  instinct  that  enjoys, 
And  the  far  nobler  instinct  that  aspires." 

That  is,  there  is  within  us  a  higher  and  a  lower ;  and  may 
it  not  be  that  through  the  higher  as  rightful  lawgiver  to 
the  lower  the  moral  rule  is  given?  This  consideration 
is  often  and  variously  met;  and  in  one  sense  we  hold  it 
true,  and  Dr.  Martineau  so  holds  it.  It  is  within  us  and 
at  our  supreme  height  that  this  voice  is  heard,  and  it  is 
within  us  that  we  heed  it  or  otherwise.  "  But,"  argues 
Dr.  Martineau,  "  though  the  authority  of  the  higher  incen- 
tive is  self-known,  it  cannot  be  self-created ;  for,  while  it 
is  in  me,  it  is  above  me.  Its  tones  thrill  through  my 
chamber  where  I  sit  alone :  but  it  was  not  my  voice  that 
uttered  them :  they  came  to  me,  but  not  from  me.  .  .  . 
I  resist  the  claims  of  the  right ;  I  wrestle  with  them  ;  I  am 
beaten  by  them  :  or,  I  surrender  to  them ;  I  follow  them  ; 
I  triumph  with  them :  and  how,  then,  can  you  say  that 
they  are  but  the  shadow  of  myself?  The  authority  which 
I  set  up  I  am  able  also  to  take  down ;  yet,  do  what  I 
may,  I  cannot  discharge  my  compunctions,  and  shut  the 
door  on  them  as  on  troublesome  creditors  who  have 
nothing  to  show  against  me,  and  depend  upon  my  will 
for  any  claim  they  have.  No  act  of  repeal  on  my  part 
avails  to  release  me  from  the  obligations  which  turn  up 
within  my  consciousness ;  nor,  by  any  edict  of  clemency 
to  my  own  moral  bankruptcy,  can  I  say  to  myself,  '  I  for- 
give thee  all  that  debt.'  "  ^  There  is,  however,  a  difficulty 
that  lurks  in  this  conception  of  higher  and  lower  which 
exacts  a  word.  Though  the  conception  is  true  enough 
as  denoting  the  contrast  between  the  lower  passions  and 

1  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  63. 


368  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

the  higher  reason,  it  will  not  bear  a  moment's  investiga- 
tion when  it  conveys  the  suggestion  of  source  and  recip- 
ient of  the  moral  rule.  What  is  it  within  me  that  can 
receive  such  a  rule?  Only  the  person  that  I  am,  whose 
functions  are  my  reason  and  my  wnll :  this  may,  indeed, 
receive  such  rule  and  then  apply  it  to  the  control  of  my 
passions  and  the  regulation  of  my  desires.  But  above 
this,  what  is  there  within  me  by  which  this  august  rule 
can  be  declared?  No  fact  can  be  plainer  than  that  the 
recipient  agency  is  here  the  highest  within  me.  For  this 
supreme  gift,  then,  I  am  driven  to  look  beyond  and  above 
me. 

3.  This  view  of  the  source  of  moral  authority  might 
be  easily  tested  in  other  fields ;  the  tests,  however,  would 
only  still  further  discredit  it,  and  we  may  as  well  dismiss 
it  here.  But  there  is  a  third  explanation  that  has  been 
pressed  with  great  earnestness.  We  are  not  insulated 
beings ;  our  life  is  in  society ;  each  is  one  of  many,  a  part 
of  all.  May  it  not  be,  then,  that  this  sense  of  obligation 
comes  out  of  society :  the  whole  dominating  the  individ- 
ual, humanity  in  lordship  over  man?  To  poetic  tempera- 
ments this  view  has  often  great  weight ;  and  to  scientific 
minds,  also,  that  can  hazard  a  speculation  where  they 
cannot  build  an  induction.  It  is  variously  reflected  in 
all  ethics  of  Positivist  tendency,  and  is  fundamental  in 
that  strange  Religion  of  Humanity  in  which  Comte  would 
substitute  for  the  worship  of  God  a  worship  of  man. 

It  is  true  that  our  moral  sentiments,  in  the  main,  do 
not  appear  save  in  social  relations.  This,  however,  may 
mean  no  more  than  that,  like  other  things,  they  must 
have  their  conditions;  that  mother  love,  for  instance, 
could  not  be  without  motherhood,  nor  human  sympathy 
save  in  contact  with  a  human  need  that  invokes  it.  That 
these  conditions  are  the  source  of  moral  authority  by  no 
means  follows.     But  come  directly  to  the  question :    What 


GOD   AND    CONSCIENCE  369 

do  we  mean  when  we  say  this  sense  of  obUgation  comes 
from  society?  Do  we  indeed  mean  that  the  whole  domi- 
nates the  individual?  How,  then,  is  the  "whole"  to  be 
conceived  by  us?  Is  it  an  "  aggregate  of  separate  persons, 
taken  one  by  one,  without  any  consciousness  of  moral  dis- 
tinctions, and  combined  simply  for  the  greater  strength 
of  associated  will?"  Then,  as  Dr.  Martineau  maintains, 
the  dominance  of  the  "  whole  over  the  part"  is  the  "  rela- 
tion of  force  to  weakness,  which  has  nothing  whatever  to 
do  with  the  relation  of  right  to  wrong."  "  Magnitude  of 
scale  carries  no  moral  quality."  "  Such  as  the  natures 
are,  separately  taken,  such  will  be  their  collective  sum."  ^ 
A  million  rats  might  bring  us  to  serious  extremities ;  but 
their  numbers  would  not  promote  them  in  our  esteem, 
only  increase  our  disgust.  With  Swift,  conceive  our 
fellow-men  as  yahoos,  and  their  aggregate,  however  vast, 
could  not  break  the  force  of  the  Brobdingnagian  judgment 
which  pronounced  them  the  "  most  pernicious  race  of 
odious  little  vermin  that  nature  ever  suffered  to  crawl 
upon  the  face  of  the  earth ;  "  and  any  superior  nature, 
however  coerced  by  their  numbers,  could  stand  to  them 
in  no  relation  in  which  they  could  be  to  it  a  source  of 
moral  authority.  The  dark  view  of  the  great  satirist  may 
not  be  ours,  and  human  nature  may  be  noble  in  our  eyes ; 
still  the  argument  holds,  that  in  its  mass,  simply  as  mass, 
however  large,  it  sustains  no  relation  to  me  whence  it  can 
speak  to  me  in  that  oracular  tone.  Its  vast  constraint 
may  impose  on  me  a  imtst,  but  how  can  it  impose  an 
ought?  It  speaks  to  me  of  its  interests  and  its  welfare; 
but  morally  it  speaks  to  no  purpose  unless  to  a  Duty  that 
is  already  wnthin  me.  Shall  I  sacrifice  for  society,  —  toil, 
suffer,  die?  Yes,  indeed  ;  but  my  doing  so  is  only  enforced 
and  perfunctory,  it  has  absolutely  no  moral  quality,  unless 
the  command  to  do  so  is  met  and  ratified  by  an  antece- 

*  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  67. 
34 


370  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

dent  obligation  in  my  breast.  Through  law  or  institution 
or  custom  does  it  say  ought  to  me?  Then  it  simply 
speaks  out  of  a  common  sentiment  to  the  like  sentiment 
in  me.  In  any  sense  implying  moral  authority  as  original 
in  itself,  it  cannot  speak  to  me  that  august  word.  Con- 
gruous with  this  truth  and  illustrative  of  it,  is  our  feeling 
in  contemplating  some  great  ordeal  where  chief  priests 
and  rabbis  are  all  on  one  side,  and  one  buffeted  yet  truth- 
sustained  son  of  man  on  the  other.  Transport  ourselves 
into  the  Diet  of  Worms,  and  to  whom  shall  we  look  for 
the  purer  moral  light?  Not  to  the  emperor  and  the  vast 
concourse  of  princes  and  nobles  and  church  dignitaries, 
but  to  the  one  defiant  hero  there. 

There  is,  however,  another  way  of  treating  the  relation 
with  society,  —  one  that  takes  account,  not  of  mass,  but  of 
duration;  and  which  affirms,  in  effect,  that  the  spon- 
taneous response  to  her  rules  which  society  cannot  at 
once  command  she  can  secure  through  the  drill  of  genera- 
tions. I,  who  sum  up  in  myself  some  thousands  of  years 
of  hereditary  dealing  with  her,  have  her  utilities  organ- 
ized as  moral  prepossessions  within  me.  Thou  shalt  not 
lie  ;  thou  shalt  not  steal ;  thou  shalt  not  kill ;  be  just ;  be 
temperate ;  be  humane  ;  —  the  moral  response  I  make  to 
these  commands  I  am  bidden  to  account  for  by  the  many 
centuries  of  her  tuition.  To  this  Dr.  Martineau  replies 
that  "  the  highest  capital  of  human  wishes,  paid  up 
through  all  the  ages,  .  .  .  can  make  nothing  just  that  was 
not  just  before.  At  best,  it  can  only  enforce  obligations 
already  there,  —  obligations  which  it  cannot  cancel,  and 
did  not  create."^  This  is  a  brief  and  summary  dealing 
with  a  doctrine  of  which  the  vogue  is  wide.  Its  clearness, 
however,  makes  exposition  superfluous,  and  from  its  in- 
herent strength  it  needs  to  be  buttressed  by  no  argument. 
While    admitting,  therefore,   that   through  the  tuition   of 

1  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  67. 


GOD   AND   CONSCIENCE  371 

generations  man  may  acquire  a  more  steady  obedience, 
we  must  deny  that  in  that  tuition  originated  the  righteous- 
ness he  obeys.  It  well  may  be  that  through  the  evo- 
lutionary process  the  right  becomes  clearer  and  more 
dominating;  but  this  is  almost  the  same  as  saying  that  by 
it  that  process  is  directed,  which  implies  that  in  its  source 
it  is  extra-evolutionary. 

But  grant  that  Conscience  is  something  other  than  a 
"  Right  by  Social  Vote,"  and  that  it  does  not  come  from 
society  as  an  hereditary  reflection  of  its  prudence,  may  we 
not  yet  regard  it  as  a  certain  standard  of  feeling  that  de- 
scends from  those  of  loftier  nature  to  those  below  them? 
A  saint  in  a  neighborhood  may  redeem  its  life;  a  nation 
is  something  other  for  a  Pericles  or  a  Washington ;  Soc- 
rates and  Marcus  Aurelius  are  suns  in  whose  fostering 
warmth  we  thrive :  by  such  there  is  created  a  moral  at- 
mosphere, from  breathing  which  we  more  truly  live.  Con- 
science, may  we  not  then  say,  is  the  result  of  consciences? 
By  others'  strength  we  are  strong;  by  others'  ideals  we 
form  our  own.  The  standard  of  courage,  —  how  often  is  it 
but  the  chieftain's  example,  short  of  which  it  is  ignominy 
to  fall !  Consecration,  —  why  not  settle  with  it  at  once  as 
the  devotion  of  Paul  and  Savonarola  glorified?  To  the 
vast  majority,  if  not  to  all,  the  significance  to  moral  stand- 
ards of  commanding  example  is  measureless.  Why  not 
say,  then,  that  the  canons  of  moral  judgment  are  the 
happy  hits  of  a  few  exalted  natures,  whence  they  have  de- 
scended as  a  grace  to  those  below  them?  This  view  has 
to  many  minds  a  persuasive  look ;  and  with  it  before  him 
Dr.  Martineau  remarks  that  if  we  take  society  to  mean  the 
"  common  council  of  responsible  men,  then  it  is  most  true 
that  the  moral  authority  which  we  acknowledge  is  brought 
to  an  intense  focus  in  our  minds  by  the  reflected  lights  of 
theirs ;  and  we  should  but  dimly  own  it,  did  they  not  own 
it  too."     "  But,"  he  asks,  "  how  is  it  that  they  thus  work 


372  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

upon  us,  and  mould  us  to  a  new  docility?  Is  it  that  they 
are  principals  in  command,  and  we  subordinates  in  ser- 
vice, that,  accepting  their  will  as  sovereign,  we  are  content 
to  do  their  bidding?  No:  their  function  in  this  matter  is, 
not  to  fill  the  post  of  authority,  but  to  join  us  on  the  steps 
of  submission  below  it;  to  confess  their  fellow-feeling  with 
us,  and  accept  their  partnership  under  the  same  law. 
Instead  of  being  our  masters,  they  are  but  bondsmen,  with 
us,  of  a  higher  righteousness,  which  opens  its  oracles  and 
seeks  its  organs  in  us  all."^ 

Thus  all  these  hypotheses,  critically  examined,  fail  to 
render  a  satisfactory  account  of  this  haunting  sense  of 
obligation.  It  is  not  born  of  the  consideration  of  pleas- 
ure and  pain,  whether  present  or  prospective ;  it  does 
not  come  out  of  ourselves ;  it  does  not  come  from  society, 
either  through  the  weight  of  its  present  authority,  or  its 
organized  and  hereditary  discipline ;  and  while  our  nobler 
fellow-men,  through  their  submission  to  it,  may  help  our 
own,  it  is  as  they  help  in  the  attainment  of  any  virtue  or 
any  grace  in  which  they  surpass  us.  At  whatever  height 
they  may  stand  above  us,  it  speaks  to  them  as  to  us, 
and  they  bow  to  it  as  we  bow.  These  hypotheses  we 
may  now  dismiss  as  not  entitled  to  further  hearing. 

4.  There  is  another  hypothesis,  which  suppose  we  try. 
Suppose  we  assume  that  the  authority  which  seems  so 
real  is  so  in  very  fact ;  that  the  voice  which  speaks  as  from 
above  is  indeed  that  of  one  who  is  rightful  lawgiver  to  us ; 
why,  then  we  seem  to  give  this  authority  a  perfectly  nat- 
ural explanation,  albeit  the  one  that  all  the  others  have 
been  put  forward  to  supplant.  It  is  such  account  as  the 
needle,  if  endowed  with  consciousness,  might  give  of  the 
attraction  that  holds  it :  unseen,  yet  felt,  and  through 
the  feeling,  its  objective  validity  certified.  Obligation 
means  a  due;  ought  signifies  relation;   authority  implies 

^  Seat  0/ Authorify,-^^.6']-(&. 


GOD   AND   CONSCIENCE  373 

not  merely  one  who  is  sensible  of  its  imperative,  but  also 
one  who  issues  its  decree.  In  other  words,  the  moral 
consciousness  implies  a  dualism,  a  sense  of  right  within 
responding  to  a  Righteousness  without,  of  which  our 
hypothesis  renders  an  intelligible  account.  But  suppose 
for  a  moment  this  hypothesis  not  to  be  true;  that  the 
inward  sense  responds  to  no  outward  reality ;  that  this  is 
an  atheistic  world  in  which  man  stands  supreme.  Then 
there  is  one  term  of  a  dual  relation  without  the  other  one : 
a  voice  where  no  voice  speaks  ;  a  sense  of  duty  where  there 
is  no  due ;  an  allegiance  inwardly  required,  but  no  sover- 
eign to  whom  to  render  it ;  in  a  word,  all  the  peculiar  sen- 
timents appropriate  to  one  standing  in  the  presence  of  a 
God,  and  yet  no  God.  The  inevitable  result  of  this,  so  far 
as  accepted,  must  be  a  sense  of  the  utter  untrustworthiness 
of  our  deeper  faculties.  They  then  demand  an  obedience 
where  there  is  none  to  obey ;  and  report  to  us  as  from 
beyond  the  stars  a  voice  which  is  but  the  muttering  of 
opinion  around  us  or  the  whispering  of  fancy  within  us. 
If  there  be  anything  that  more  than  anything  else  makes 
necessary  the  belief  in  God,  it  is  the  moral  sense  within 
us ;  and  if  there  be  any  delusion  that  surpasses  every 
other,  it  is  that  of  which  this  sense  makes  us  the  victim 
if  God  be  no  reality.  Let  that  supposition  stand,  and 
man  may  still  be  the  "glory,"  but  he  is  also  the  "jest  and 
riddle  of  the  world." 

A  distrust  of  our  deeper  faculties,  however,  can  never 
be  of  long  continuance.  However  they  may  be  bewil- 
dered for  a  time,  we  cannot  sophisticate  ourselves  into  a 
permanent  doubt  of  them.  The  universe  that  enters  into 
us  through  them  is  the  only  one  that  we  can  receive,  and 
before  this  trust  in  them  the  atheistic  hypothesis  vanishes. 
The  dual  relation  is  not  between  Conscience  and  a  blank, 
but  between  Conscience  and  a  reality.  The  duty  within  me 
implies  One  who  demands  of  me  his  due.     The  righteous' 


374  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

ness  that  thrills  me  is  the  inward  oracle  of  a  Righteousness 
that  presses  upon  me.  The  ought  I  feel  is  of  sovereign 
command.  The  voice  of  Conscience  is  the  voice  of  God. 
This,  in  other  statement,  is  the  mind  of  Dr.  Martineau. 
As  through  Perception  we  are  shown  "  another  than  our- 
selves," so,  he  reasons,  through  Conscience  there  is  re- 
vealed to  us  a  "  higher  than  ourselves ;  "  and  to  the  report 
of  either  he  attaches  a  like  validity.  He  is  not  surer  of  a 
world  around  him  than  of  a  Righteousness  above  him. 
Our  confidence  in  either  rests  ultimately,  indeed,  upon 
faith  in  our  faculties ;  but  this  granted,  he  holds  the  infer- 
ence in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other  to  be  necessary 
and  resistless.  To  the  impressions  borne  in  upon  us, 
whether  through  Perception  or  Conscience,  there  must 
be  an  objective  counterpart:  the  sense  of  Duty,  like  the 
sense  of  touch  or  sight,  implies  a  "  dual  relation ;  "  it  "  can- 
not belong  to  a  soul  iji  vacuo,  but  must  be  for  ever  a  dis- 
consolate and  wandering  illusion,  till  it  rests  with  Him  to 
whom  the  allegiance  is  due."  ^ 

Thus  through  the  Moral  Sense  or  Conscience  we  reach 
the  conception  of  a  Divine  Righteousness.  We  pause  in 
our  course  for  a  moment  to  ask  what  righteousness  the 
righteousness  of  God  implies.  We  must  dare  to  be  an- 
thropomorphic yet  again,  and  say  that  what  it  implies  in 
God  must  be  divined  from  what  it  is  found  to  imply  in 
man.  In  any  system  of  religious  thought  a  parallelism 
between  Divine  and  human  righteousness  must  appear. 
Thus  under  Jewish  legalism,  man's  righteousness  was  in 
the  keeping  of  the  Law,  its  tithes  and  its  offerings,  its 
new  moons  and  Sabbath  days ;  God's  righteousness,  on 
the  other  hand,  was  seen  in  the  appointment  of  this 
Law,  in  his  smile  upon  obedience,  his  frown  upon  dis- 
obedience.     In   the    systems    of  Christian   doctrine,  too, 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  p.  27 


GOD   AND   CONSCIENCE  3/5 

associated  with  the  names  of  St.  Augustine  and  Calvin, 
we  meet  the  Hke  parallehsm  again.  The  righteousness  of 
man  consisted  in  the  acceptance  of  certain  conditions  of 
salvation  ;  that  of  God  in  providing  these  conditions  and 
in  reprobation  of  such  as  did  not  embrace  them.  These 
systems,  however,  were  founded  on  a  supposed  revelation, 
in  surrender  to  which  the  moral  sense  was  given  little 
hearing ;  rather,  attempts  on  its  part  to  interpret  the  moral 
universe  by  its  own  light  were  treated  as  superfluous  and 
questionable  enterprise.  Whenever  the  moral  sense  makes 
this  attempt,  however,  something  other  than  a  parallel- 
ism is  reached ;  there  is  divined  a  relation  as  of  wavelet 
and  Deep,  of  ray  and  Sun.  The  righteousness  of  man, 
the  conduct,  that  is,  which  the  moral  sense  in  its  noblest 
exercise  requires,  becomes  the  analogical  base  from  which 
we  rise  to  our  conception  of  the  righteousness  of  God. 
The  integrity  which  I  demand,  the  justice  for  which  I 
plead,  the  benevolence  which  I  know  should  rule  my 
life,  I  must  find  in  him  or  I  am  hopelessly  bewildered. 
Nay,  in  the  last  account,  I  see  that  they  must  be  of  him, 
his  light  shed  abroad  in  me.  To  our  limited  vision, 
though  justice  and  judgment  are  the  habitation  of  his 
throne,  clouds  and  darkness  must  be  round  about  him. 
Many  of  his  appointments  I  cannot  understand.  But 
when,  turning  within  my  moral  consciousness,  I  find  that 
while  faithful  to  that  I  could  not  inflict  a  needless  hurt 
upon  any  creature,  then  I  am  simply  sure  that  his  right- 
eousness must  be  one  with  his  goodness,  and  that  the 
darker  phases  of  existence,  rightly  understood,  do  not 
contradict  his  benevolence. 

II.    TJie  Moral  Aspects  of  the  Universe 

A  grave  problem,  however,  is  yet  before  us.     The  faith 
so   confidently  affirmed   above  must  now  be   brought  to 


3/6  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

proof  in  the  broad  field  of  experience.  We  found  our 
deduction  from  the  causal  intuition  ratified  by  Nature;  do 
we  find  like  ratification  for  our  deduction  from  the  moral 
intuition?  Nature  reflects  an  Intelligence;  does  it  also 
reflect  a  Righteousness?  Is  the  Being  whose  voice  I 
recognize  in  Conscience  identical  with  the  Being  to  whom 
I  refer  the  structure  and  order  of  the  world  ?  Shall  I  say 
the  God  of  Nature  is  one  and  the  God  of  Conscience 
another?  To  state  this  as  a  thesis  and  then  attempt  to 
defend  it  would  lead  into  bewilderments  of  thought  that 
would  be  ludicrous  if  they  were  not  so  grave.  But  to 
adopt  the  opposite  thesis,  and  maintain  that  they  are  only 
different  aspects  of  one ;  that  the  All-Wise  is  the  All- 
Righteous  and  the  All-Righteous  the  All-Wise,  involves 
difficulties  more  familiar,  but  hardly  less  grave. 

For  when  we  affirm  that  the  Author  of  Nature  is  right- 
eous, we  meet  the  solemn  challenge  that  comes  from  the 
experience  of  evil,  from  which  no  sentient  nature  is 
granted  immunity.  How  can  the  All-Righteous  decree  or 
suff*er  evil?  How  can  we  reconcile  this  manifold  pain 
with  a  Divine  Perfection?  We  recall  the  terrible  indict- 
ment of  John  Stuart  Mill :  "  Nature  impales  men,  breaks 
them  as  if  on  a  wheel,  casts  them  to  be  devoured  by  wild 
beasts,  burns  them  to  death,  crushes  them  with  stones 
like  the  first  Christian  martyr,  starves  them  with  hunger, 
freezes  them  with  cold,  poisons  them  with  the  quick  or 
slow  venom  of  her  exhalations,  and  has  hundreds  of  other 
hideous  deaths  in  reserve,  such  as  the  ingenious  cruelty  of 
a  Nabis  or  a  Domitian  never  surpassed,"  ^  and  what  answer 
can  we  make?  Though  in  the  case  of  man  we  may  con- 
struct a  defence  of  this,  taking  account  of  his  needful  pun- 
ishment and  discipline  and  education,  how  of  the  lower 
animals  which  deserve  no  punishment,  and  can  profit  by 
no  discipline,  and  which   Nature   yet  makes  the  prey  of 

1   Three  Essays  on  Religion,  p.  29. 


GOD   AND    CONSCIENCE  377 

Other  animals,  afflicts  with  disease,  crushes,  freezes,  burns, 
drowns,  starves?  Did  we  wish  to  maintain  the  sover- 
eignty of  an  evil  deity,  what  a  bill  of  particulars  would 
be  possible  !  Pleasant  pictures  of  Nature  we  often  in- 
dulge: her  sunshine,  her  breezes,  her  grass,  her  flowers; 
the  bird's  carol,  the  lamb's  frolic,  the  colt's  gambol,  the 
sweet  domesticities  of  the  nest  and  the  lair.  But  there  are 
also  the  pestilence,  the  blizzard,  the  inundation,  the  earth- 
quake, the  tiger's  claws,  the  vulture's  beak,  the  snake's 
venom.  The  difficulties  of  this  problem  are  manifold  and 
grave.  "  With  the  critic,"  says  Dr.  Martineau,  "  who 
arraigns  the  creative  skill  and  thinks  the  solar  system  or 
the  human  eye  a  bungling  piece  of  work,  it  is  easy  to 
be  simply  amused  without  disturbance:  but  whoever  asks 
us  about  the  problem  of  evil,  and  especially  of  sin,  touches 
a  chord  of  secret  sorrow,  and  subdues  us  to  a  grave  anx- 
iety." He  adds  the  concession  which  the  strength  of  his 
theistic  feeling  makes  the  more  significant,  that  "  in  various 
ways  the  phenomena  of  life  are  disappointing  to  our  ideal 
of  a  moral  administration  of  its  affairs."^  It  is  undeni- 
able, too,  that  the  studies  of  recent  years,  especially  on 
evolutionary  lines,  have  deepened  the  gravity  of  this  theme. 
The  struggle  for  life,  which  is  only  another  name  for  the 
struggle  for  food,  and  which  is  a  basal  truth  in  Darwinian 
doctrine,  presents  to  us  organic  nature  as  a  scene  of  cease- 
less and  pitiless  foray.  On  the  ethical  side  the  darkness 
may  be  somewhat  lightened  by  the  struggle  for  the  life  of 
others,  of  which  Henry  Drummond  discourses  so  elo- 
quently,^ showing  an  altruism  against  the  otherwise  unre- 
lieved egoism  of  nature.  There  all  the  same  is  the  struggle, 
not  less  insistent  or  attended  with  less  suffering  because 
altruistic.  The  truth  casts  a  look  of  cruelty  upon  Nature 
which  even    her  summer   exuberance  and  beauty  cannot 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  pp.  53-54. 
^  The  Ascent  of  i\fan,  chap.  ii. 


378  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

hide,  and  prepares  not  a  few  to  embrace  the  solemn  judg- 
ment of  Professor  Huxley,  that  "  cosmic  nature  is  no 
school  of  virtue,  but  the  headquarters  of  the  enemy  of 
ethical  nature  ;  "  ^  and  that  the  "  ethical  progress  of  society 
depends,  not  on  imitating  the  cosmic  process,  .  .  .  but  in 
combating  it."^ 

However,  though  the  difficulties  of  this  problem  are 
very  great,  it  may  not  be  absolutely  necessary  that  we 
surrender  our  faith  before  them ;  at  any  rate,  it  is  fair  to 
investigate  them  before  we  do  so.  The  sufferings  of  the 
lower  animals  our  human  sensibilities  may  exaggerate ; 
and  seeing  them  in  their  true  proportions  will  so  far 
lighten  our  problem.  There  may  be  pain  that  is  quite 
indispensable  to  the  welfare  of  sentient  natures,  and  which, 
therefore,  we  must  write  down,  not  as  bane,  but  as  bless- 
ing. There  may  be  pain  incident  upon  a  system  of  things 
which  in  its  largeness  our  reason  pronounces  good,  and 
which,  therefore,  for  that  system's  sake  we  would  have 
the  world  endure.  It  might  be  instructive  sometimes, 
when  disparaging  the  world  because  of  its  evil,  to  select 
some  special  evil,  in  thought  banish  it  from  the  world, 
working  as  we  do  so  all  the  myriad  transformations  its 
banishment  should  imply,  and  then  calmly  contemplate 
the  result.  Possibly  it  might  look  surpassingly  fair  to 
us;  but  the  probabilities  the  rather  are  that  the  world  thus 
made  over  we  would  not  accept  in  exchange  for  the  world 
we  know ;  that  the  system  of  things  that  makes  provision 
for  that  evil  would  be  fairer  to  our  eyes  than  the  system 
of  things  that  would  not  suffer  it.  We  recall  the  dream  of 
Theodorus  as  the  imagination  of  Leibnitz  has  constructed 
it.  The  oracle  has  made  known  to  Sextus  Tarquinius  that, 
following  his  heady  will,  for  the  wrongs  he  shall  do  he 
shall  be  driven  forth  in  poverty  and  exile.     Theodorus,  a 

1  Romanes  Lecture,  Collected  Essays,  vol.  ix.  p.  75. 

2  Ibid.  p.  83. 


GOD   AND   CONSCIENCE  379 

priest  of  the  temple,  asks  of  Jupiter  that  he  explain  to  him 
the  hard  fate  of  Sextus  :  why  a  different  will,  which  should 
conduct  him  through  other  paths  to  a  different  issue,  has 
not  been  given  him.  In  a  vision  he  is  taken  in  hand  by- 
Minerva,  who  shows  him  the  plan  of  several  possible 
worlds.  In  one  is  Sextus  rich  and  happy  and  honored, 
yet,  as  he  surveys  it,  it  does  not  suit  him.  He  is  shown 
another  in  which  is  Sextus  great  and  powerful,  yet  he  turns 
from  it  dissatisfied.  Finally  he  is  shown  one  that  fills  him 
with  delight;  and  is  then  told  that  it  is  the  plan  of  the 
very  world  in  which  he  lives,  which  cannot  be  without  its 
Sextus. 

Of  these  three  considerations  the  latter  shall  engage  us 
first.  In  some  form  or  other  we  have  our  Sextus,  and  we 
are  not  pleased  with  him ;  yet  our  ideal  world  must  contain 
him ;  for  it  cannot  be  ideal  without  the  conditions  that 
imply  him.  Of  the  Divine  Perfection  we  demand  a  world 
without  evil :  Sextus  it  should  not  suffer.  To  Omnipo- 
tence, we  say,  this  should  be  possible ;  infinite  resource 
should  be  equal  to  conditions  that  imply  no  pain.  Suppose 
we  grant  it.  Still  we  may  urge  that  to  Omnipotence  this 
and  at  the  same  time  that  which  is  incompatible  with  it  is 
not  possible.  We  must  not  ask  contradictories,  even  of 
God.  The  fact  that  he  does  not  at  the  same  time  provide 
for  his  creatures  mutually  exclusive  conditions  does  not 
discredit  his  goodness.  We  may  see  this  better  by  illus- 
tration. The  one  aspect  of  the  universe  that  we  are  most 
wont  to  celebrate  is  its  order  ;  but  with  this  is  implicated 
a  very  large  portion  of  the  evils  of  which  we  seek  explana- 
tion. Without  these  evils  how,  then,  that  order?  Take 
in  hand  a  familiar  case:  Of  the  fluidity  of  water  we  never 
hear  complaint ;  without  this  how  should  it  serve  its  multi- 
farious uses?  Of  the  service  of  the  sun's  heat  in  occasion- 
ing chemical  changes,  whence  the  world's  bloom  and 
fruitage,  we  surely  think  well ;   and  of  gravitation  which 


380  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

holds  the  mountain  in  its  place  and  the  heavens  at  their 
poise  we  need  the  poet  properly  to  tell.  Yet  you  com- 
plain of  malaria :  because  of  your  chill  and  your  fever, 
God,  you  conceive,  must  be  feeble  or  unkind.  But  in 
the  production  of  this  poison  these  several  laws  are  joint 
agents.  Because  water  is  fluid,  gravitation  conducts  it 
ever  from  the  hilltops  to  the  valleys,  and  holds  it  there ; 
and  the  sun's  rays  falling  upon  it  work  the  chemical 
change  whence  malaria  comes.  If  water  were  not  fluid, 
if  gravitation  would  not  conduct  it  to  the  valleys  or 
would  suffer  it  to  flow  to  the  hilltops,  if  the  sun's  rays 
would  work  no  chemical  change,  why,  then  there  would 
be  no  malaria;  and  these  laws  must  be  suspended  in 
their  operation,  that  living  creatures  may  enjoy  this  happy 
exemption.  And  this  supposed  case  may  illustrate 
universal  nature.  The  flood,  the  drouth,  the  hail,  the 
frost,  the  lightning,  the  avalanche,  the  tornado,  are  all 
incident  upon  laws  we  would  not  ask  to  have  annulled, 
without  which,  indeed,  this  system  of  things  could  not  be. 
But  you  plead  that  if  only  they  were  so  regulated  that 
there  should  be  no  flood  where  there  is  anything  to  drown, 
or  drouth  where  men  have  sown  or  where  cattle  graze,  or 
frost  where  there  is  anything  to  suffer  chill,  if  the  lightning 
could  be  forbidden  to  smite  anything  but  the  unfeeling 
rocks,  and  the  tempest  be  held  back  till  the  commerce  is 
safely  harbored,  and  the  avalanche  be  diverted  from  its 
course  in  consideration  of  the  thoughtless  bear  that  is 
climbing  before  it,  what  incalculable  loss  and  suffering 
would  be  spared.  Be  it  so ;  but  thus,  in  place  of  the 
order  you  celebrate,  you  would  introduce  a  reign  of  mir- 
acle. Suffering  might  thus  indeed  be  spared,  but  the  con- 
stancy of  nature  would  be  gone.  Let  it  be  presumed  that 
we  might  have  the  constancy  or  might  have  the  miracle ; 
yet,  since  they  arc  mutually  exclusive,  we  cannot  stipu- 
late for  both.     Possibly  you  may  think  the  reign  of  mir- 


GOD   AND    CONSCIENCE  381 

acle  would  be  better;  but  were  it  left  to  the  suffrage  of 
mankind  the  vote  would  undoubtedly  be  for  the  order. 
In  this  multifarious  evil  is  our  Sextus,  to  whom  a  law- 
governed  and  orderly  world  must  give  place. 

The  alternative  presented  us  in  thought,  then,  is  a  world 
whose  more  general  features  we  approve,  with  Sextus,  or 
a  world  without  Sextus  whose  more  general  features  we  do 
not  approve.  It  is  not,  however,  in  this  large  way  that 
most  men  wrestle  with  the  problem :  it  is  not  with  evil 
but  with  evils  that  they  struggle,  the  special  pains  they 
experience  or  see.  Here,  however,  on  a  smaller  field  it 
is  still  an  alternative  of  better  condition  with  Sextus  or 
poorer  without  him.  We  have  mentioned  pains  that  seem 
clearly  necessary  to  welfare,  and  these  come  now  before 
us.  They  are  such  as  are  experienced  from  hunger,  thirst, 
heat,  cold,  fatigue.  They  have  a  monitory  office,  and 
the  greater  evil  would  surely  be,  not  in  experiencing  them, 
but  in  not  being  able  to  experience  them.  Consider  for  a 
moment  hunger  and  thirst.  They  express  the  demand  of 
the  organism  for  food  and  drink,  without  which  it  would 
perish ;  and  the  longer  they  are  denied  the  more  insistent 
is  this  demand.  Of  this  the  critics  of  the  moral  legislation 
of  the  universe  have  complained,  but  what  would  they 
have?  In  a  matter  so  exigent  as  this,  would  they  leave 
the  animal  or  even  man  to  the  rule  of  wisdom  or  sagacity 
to  select  nourishment  and  determine  the  times  for  taking 
it,  uninstructed  by  any  sense  of  want?  Dr.  Martineau 
well  asks,  "  If  each  creature  had  to  study  its  own  case, 
and,  like  an  outside  physician,  prescribe  its  diet  and  its 
meals  .  .  .  how  long  would  it  be  before  it  slipped  into 
some  fatal  forgetfulness,  like  a  patient  kept  alive  by  art, 
and  blundering  among  his  medicines?"^  The  sufferings 
of  heat  and  cold,  too,  are  in  like  manner  monitory.  Each 
tells  the  creature  that  its  conditions  are  not  suited  to  itself 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  p.  76. 


382  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

and  urges  that  it  change  them.  Imagine  a  creature  to 
which  tropic  heats  and  polar  frosts  were  indifferent  and  so 
left  to  choose  its  latitudes  without  sensible  realization  of 
any  contrast  between  them !  The  sufferings  of  fatigue, 
also,  rightly  claim  a  word  in  their  behalf.  Were  the  animal 
only  a  machine,  it  might  run  on  and  on,  until  at  length, 
entirely  spent,  it  could  run  no  longer.  Being,  however, 
not  a  machine,  but  an  organism,  there  comes  at  last  the 
realization  that  its  force  is  getting  spent,  which  is  also  an 
admonition  that  it  pause  till  its  vigor  be  renewed.  In  like 
manner,  too,  we  must  treat  the  pain  that  attends  physical 
injury  or  disease.  It  tells  of  something  wrong  with  the  or- 
ganism, and  asks  relief.  A  particle  of  dust  impinges  upon 
the  eye,  and  how  keen  is  the  suffering !  The  suffering 
is  Nature's  way  of  telling  of  the  presence  in  the  eye  of  that 
which  would  soon  destroy  it.  However  we  may  dislike 
our  pain,  surely  our  human  wisdom  would  elect  that  where 
our  injury  is,  there  an  ache  may  be.  From  what  multi- 
tudinous forms  of  peril  do  we  snatch  ourselves  at  the 
beneficent  prompting  of  our  pain  !  A  work  on  physiology 
recounts  an  instance  of  a  man  who,  his  lower  limbs  being 
partially  paralyzed,  was  ordered  to  hold  them  in  tepid 
water.  Feeling  no  sense  of  warmth,  he  plunged  them 
into  boiling  water.  He  never  had  the  use  of  feet  there- 
after. The  pain  that  normally  attends  a  scald  was  not 
present  to  save  him. 

Here,  again,  we  give  our  vote  for  a  world  with  Sextus. 
There  are  other  forms  of  evil,  however,  with  which  it  is 
not  so  easy  to  deal.  Dr.  Martineau  instances  the  pains 
of  decline ;  and  these,  after  careful  dealing  with  them,  he 
seems  to  turn  from  with  mind  not  wholly  satisfied.  In 
them  there  is  no  discipline  for  any  future,  no  provision  for 
the  welfare  of  the  organism.  They  are  attendant  upon  a 
slow  and  irremediable  degeneracy,  a  declining  sun  which 
yields  at  last  only  twilight,  which  soon  fades  into   night. 


GOD   AND   CONSCIENCE  383 

In  man  this  decline  is  more  marked  than  in  other  animals, 
as  it  is  also  more  prolonged ;  but  no  animal  is  exempt 
from  it.  Age  dims  the  eyes  of  the  lion,  takes  its  supple- 
ness from  the  limbs  of  the  tiger,  its  strength  from  the 
eagle's  wing.  With  its  approach  the  wolf  and  the  panther 
become  incapable  of  the  hunt,  and  at  length,  unless  re- 
prieved by  the  merciful  ferocity  of  other  animals,  they  lie 
down  in  some  lonely  spot  and  whine  and  starve.  We 
mark  its  encroachment  upon  our  domestic  animals,  and, 
from  sympathy  for  their  sufferings,  first,  perhaps,  admin- 
istering some  gentle  anaesthetic,  discharge  them  from 
further  service. 

It  is  useless  to  attempt  to  minimize  this  evil,  or  to  ex- 
plain its  purpose.  It  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  a  pur- 
pose ;  rather  it  foreshadows  the  fulfilment  of  purpose,  so 
far  as  the  organism  is  concerned.  We  may  see,  however, 
what  the  absence  of  it  would  mean,  what,  by  asking  re- 
prieve from  it,  we  by  implication  ask  in  place  of  it;  and 
this  may  have  for  us  a  profitable  suggestion.  To  all 
higher  organisms  the  hill  of  life  slopes  gradually  up  ;  from 
the  summit,  would  we  have  no  sloping  down  on  the  other 
side?  The  full  maturity  of  powers  once  gained,  and 
further  continuance  implying  the  first  stages  of  decline, 
would  we  have  the  organism  vanish?  Would  we  have  it 
written  in  the  constitution  of  animal  or  man.  On  the  day 
when  thou  reachest  the  fulness  of  thy  powers,  thou  shalt 
surely  die?  Whoever  will  follow  out  this  alternative  in 
practical  application  will  be  quite  as  sensible  of  the  happi- 
ness and  usefulness  it  would  curtail  as  of  the  misery  it 
would  shorten.  The  horse  should  drop  under  his  rider; 
the  deer  should  be  snatched  from  her  fawn,  the  lioness 
from  her  whelps,  the  robin  from  her  nestlings,  that  the 
downhill  of  life  might  not  be  trodden.  The  father  and 
mother  should  be  taken  from  their  children  when  resource 
was  fullest  and  need  was  greatest,  the  scholar  forbidden  to 


384  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

gather  up  the  results  of  his  labors,  the  statesman  to  apply 
his  experience,  the  philanthropist  to  bestow  his  blessing. 
Who  can  fail  to  see  the  paralyzing  shadow  such  a  change 
would  hang  over  self-conscious  existence?  The  period  of 
maturity  would  be  the  dreaded  period ;  the  disciplines 
that  hasten  the  unfolding  of  human  powers  would  be 
renounced  for  the  indolence  that  defers  it.  The  growing 
strength  of  youth,  which  we  watch  with  such  pleasure  now, 
would  be  to  us  as  the  prophecies  of  the  hectic  flush  and 
the  hastening  pulse.  But  the  question  may  be  pressed, 
Why  not  the  prolongation  of  years  and  at  the  same  time 
exemption  from  decrepitude  and  decay?  Why  not  till 
threescore  and  ten  a  continually  expended,  yet  unwasted 
strength,  and  then  a  departure  provided  through  some 
happy  euthanasia?  Again  asking  contradictions:  for  age, 
the  vision  and  the  enterprise  of  youth;  for  the  runner, 
panting  near  the  goal,  the  unspent  vigor  of  the  start. 
"  With  what  face,"  asks  Dr.  Martineau,  "  can  any  creature 
ask  that,  living  being  so  pleasant,  unliving  should  be  so 
no  less?  That  it  feels  the  cold  on  going  out  does  but 
prove  how  warm  its  house  has  been.  You  cannot  have 
opposites  giving  you  the  same  experience:  if  it  be  sweet 
to  behold  the  light,  sweet  it  cannot  be  to  lose  it :  if  to 
thirst  be  a  distress,  to  drink  will  be  relief.  The  uneasi- 
ness of  death  is  the  necessary  correlative  to  the  happiness 
ofHfe."! 

Another  form  of  evil  by  which  many  minds  are  troubled 
is  met  in  the  law  of  prey.  Large  classes  of  animals 
subsist  on  other  animals;  man  hunts  for  his  larder;  — 
alas,  for  his  sport  as  well !  Nor  can  we  say  that  under 
this  law  there  is  always  a  sacrifice  of  the  lower  to  the 
higher.  The  bird  eats  the  worm,  it  is  true ;  but  the  croco- 
dile carries  off  the  calf,  and  the  tiger  devours  the  man. 
The  spectacle  of  one  creature  taking  the  life  of  another  is 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  p.  S3. 


GOD   AND   CONSCIENCE  385 

abhorrent  to  our  sensibilities;  and,  from  the  frequency  of 
this,  "  we  are  tempted,"  says  Dr.  Martineau,  "  to  say  tliat 
the  sweet  face  of  nature  is  hypocritical,  and  that  the  calm 
loveliness  of  the  woods  and  ravines  does  but  hide  innumer- 
able torture-halls  and  battle-fields."  He  adds :  "  From 
such  impressions  I  own  that  I  cannot  always  entirely 
free  myself."  ^ 

However,  our  human  sentiments  may  here,  as  so  often 
in  other  relations,  mislead  us.  All  that  begins  in  time 
must  end  in  time ;  the  born  must  die ;  and  with  death 
itself  we  are  ceasing  to  quarrel.  Death  of  itself  is  benefi- 
cent ;  and  of  the  many  modes  of  death,  that  by  violence  is 
among  the  easiest.  Among  the  lower  animals  it  is  prob- 
able that  the  victim  scarce  suffers  at  all.  The  testimony 
of  men  who  have  been  nigh  to  the  victim's  experience, 
that  of  the  explorer  Livingstone,  for  instance,  once  in  the 
jaws  of  a  lion,  makes  this  judgment  all  but  certain.  As 
creatures  of  this  world,  the  animals  must  leave  it,  and  by 
the  law  of  prey  Nature  makes  provision  for  their  easiest 
exit.  "  Sharp  and  quick  extinction  may  shock  the  ob- 
server by  its  startling  contrasts :  but,  to  the  sufferer,  the 
surprise  is  an  economy  of  pain.  To  imaginative  creatures 
it  might  be  otherwise :  they  might  torture  themselves  with 
life-long  dread  of  the  last  struggle :  and  such  ideal  dif- 
fusion of  possible  calamity  it  is,  that  makes  the  human 
measure  of  pain  so  different  from  the  merely  sentient. 
But  where  there  is  no  anticipation,  and  the  unsuspecting 
victim  strolls  at  ease,  or  keeps  merrily  on  the  wing,  up  to 
the  moment  of  its  fate,  the  sensibility  is  spared  to  the 
uttermost.  I  believe  that,  in  our  shrinking  from  this  law, 
we  illegitimately  import  into  our  conception  of  the  case 
elements,  which  are  indeed  inseparable  from  any  analo- 
gous human  experience,  but  which  have  no  entrance  into 
the  history  of  the  lower  terrestrial  races."  ^ 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  p.  88.  *  Ibid.  p.  89. 

25 


386  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

If  we  look  at  this  mode  of  death  from  a  practical  and 
utilitarian  point  of  view,  its  wisdom  is  certainly  approved. 
But  for  it  the  world  would  be  scarce  habitable  by  the 
higher  races.  The  animal  left  to  decay  where  it  died,  the 
atmosphere  would  become  tainted,  the  streams  polluted,  to 
such  extent  that  only  the  lower  forms  of  Hfe  would  be 
possible.  In  some  Southern  States  the  buzzard  is  pro- 
tected by  law  because  of  the  health  it  preserves  by 
devouring  the  carrion  that  would  be  pestilential.  All 
animals  and  birds  of  prey  perform  the  like  office  by 
making  carrion  to  a  large  extent  impossible.  "  Nature,  in 
her  predatory  tribes,"  says  Dr.  Martineau,  "  has  appointed 
a  sanitary  commission,  and  in  her  carrion-feeders  a  burial- 
board,  far  more  effective  than  those  which  watch  over  our 
villages  and  cities ;  "  and  he  adds  a  suggestion  which 
gentle  sensibilities  may  recoil  from,  that  "  one  of  the  great 
difficulties  in  our  crowded  civilization  is  due  to  the  fact, 
that  there  is  nobody  to  eat  us."  ^ 

Thus  far  we  have  contemplated  mainly  the  lower  ani- 
mals. We  now  turn  to  man.  As  an  animal,  he  suffers  as 
other  animals  suffer ;  as  other  than  animal  he  has  sufferings 
peculiarly  his  own.  As  related  to  the  sensitive  organism 
merely,  his  sufferings  from  like  misfortune  may  not  be 
greater  than  those  of  the  more  highly  developed  animals 
about  him.  Hunger  and  thirst  and  fatigue  we  may 
fancy  very  similar  experience  to  him  and  to  the  horse; 
a  wounded  soldier  may  not  suffer  intenser  pain  than  a 
wounded  deer;  and  the  murrain  that  destroys  the  cattle, 
though  less  prolonged,  may  be  for  its  period  as  hard  to 
bear  as  the  consumption  that  afflicts  man.  But  in  addition 
to  the  sufferings  of  his  sensitive  organism  he  experiences 
a  suffering  through  the  action  of  his  higher  faculties  of 
which  language  cannot  adequately  tell.  A  being  who  can 
carry  the  thought  of  contingency  must  have  the  dread  of 

*  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  p.  90. 


GOD  AND   CONSCIENCE  387 

vicissitude;  in  that  he  is  able  to  forecast,  it  is  impossible 
that  he  should  not  apprehend.  The  horse  takes  the  food 
of  to-day  without  concern  for  to-morrow ;  to  man  is  the 
shivering  dread  of  old  age  and  penury.  The  dog  is  satis- 
fied with  the  health  that  is;  man  is  concerned  for  the 
illness  that  may  be.  The  bird  which  the  fowler  has  missed 
flies  to  another  tree-top,  and  pours  out  its  song;  man, 
from  experience  of  danger,  may  live  in  an  enervating 
dread  of  perils  that  he  does  not  see.  The  wounded  deer 
takes  suffering  as  it  comes ;  the  wounded  soldier  contem- 
plates the  family  for  whom  he  can  no  longer  toil,  looks 
forward  to  to-morrow  as  the  dread  continuance  of  the 
suffering  of  to-day,  or  to  a  prolongation  of  life  in  weakness 
and  decrepitude.  Nor  is  forecast  the  only  mental  gift  by 
which  man  suffers ;  memory  is  enjoyed  by  him  on  the  like 
hard  tenure.  With  ills  that  have  been,  the  animal  is 
wholly  done  ;  man  perpetuates  in  himself  the  pains  of 
neglect  and  failure,  of  injuries  received  and  wrongs  com- 
mitted. These  are  grave  considerations ;  and  Dr.  Marti- 
neau  is  clearly  right  when  he  tells  us  that  "  all  sorrow  is 
certainly  loss  that  refuses  to  go  away  into  the  past :  all 
anxiety,  privation  that  will  not  wait  for  the  future :  and 
we  should  be  spared  both,  did  we  forget  everything  and 
anticipate  nothing."^  But  again,  what  would  we  have? 
To  be  without  Sextus  would  we  away  with  the  fair  con- 
ditions that  make  him  necessary,  give  up  our  memory  to 
be  spared  our  regrets,  our  vision  to  escape  our  dreads? 
Lives  there  a  man  who  would  abdicate  his  higher  fac- 
ulties and  go  down  to  the  beast,  that  like  the  beast  he 
might  enjoy  the  comfort  of  to-day  without  a  sigh  and 
without  anxiety?  take  the  ill  he  must,  provided  only 
it  be  unattended  by  dark  retrospects  and  gloomy  appre- 
hensions? "  Would  you  quit  your  many-chambered  mind, 
and  shut  yourself  up  in  a  single  cell,  and  draw  down  its 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  p.  92. 


388  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

blinds,  that  you  may  suspect  no  storms  and  see  no  lightning, 
and  know  nothing  till  you  are  struck?"  No:  reason  still 
holding  her  throne,  you  could  not  do  thus.  The  dog  has 
probably  no  evil  memories  and  no  anxious  apprehensions, 
but  can  you  fix  the  terms  on  which  you  would  exchange 
your  manhood  for  his  doghood?  Besides,  as  Dr.  Marti- 
neau  takes  pains  to  point  out:  "This  is  less  than  half  the 
tale :  the  ideal  suffering  which  is  added  to  our  nature 
is  balanced  and  over-balanced  by  an  ideal  happiness  of 
which  it  alone  is  made  susceptible.  The  capacity  of 
thought  takes  up  into  it  all  the  elements  of  our  experi- 
ence, and  gives  them  a  boundless  spiritual  extension :  and 
if,  in  this  enlargement,  there  is  any  change  of  their  pro- 
portions, it  is  that  the  ideal  forms  rather  soften  the  shad- 
ows and  glorify  the  lights :  so  that  the  inner  life  is  sweeter 
than  the  outer,  and  supplies  the  truest  balm  for  the  wounds 
of  the  actual."  ^  Though  memory  writes  some  pages  we 
could  wish  unwritten,  yet  how  ample  a  volume  is  her 
happier  record ;  and  though  the  future  holds  our  dreads, 
yet  what  brave  achievements,  what  realized  ideals,  what 
radiant  hopes  are  there !  In  the  one  direction  we  look 
back  to  the  morning,  in  the  other  "  lieth  our  Italy." 

But  man  is  a  moral  being,  and  has  experience  of  suffer- 
ing known  only  through  his  moral  sensibility.  We  recall 
from  Dr.  Martineau's  analysis  of  the  "springs  of  conduct," 
the  primary  passions^  which  he  shows  to  be  simply  an 
equipment  with  which  to  meet  a  manifold  affront  and  in- 
jury and  peril,  also  a  compassiojiate  affection  which  sends 
us  to  mitigate  the  sufferings  around  us.  We  are  given, 
that  is,  a  constitution  which  presupposes  a  dealing  with 
suffering;  which  we  are  commissioned,  not  passively  to 
accept,  but  to  combat  and  meliorate  as  we  can.  The  eyes 
do  not  more  clearly  imply  the  light  and  the  lungs  the 

1  Study  of  Relif^on,  vol.  ii,  pp.  92-93. 

2  Types  of  Ethical  Theory,  vol.  ii.  pp.  130  seq. 


GOD   AND   CONSCIENCE  389 

air  than  does  the  moral  constitution  an  evil  with  which  it 
is  to  wrestle.  Without  the  evil  it  would  scarce  have  a 
raison  d'etre.  In  the  wrestle,  too,  not  only  are  our  chief 
moral  duties  performed,  but  our  higher  crowns  are  won. 
The  school  in  which  our  patience  is  disciplined  must  be 
that  of  self-denial  and  suffering;  our  heroism  must  be 
gained  on  a  battlefield ;  our  nobler  sympathy,  through  a 
dealing  with  need  and  pain.  The  evil  "  holds  a  place 
therefore  among  the  data  of  the  moral  life,  and  is  essential 
to  this  highest  term  in  the  ideal  of  humanity."  Dr.  Mar- 
tineau  quotes  from  Rothe  the  impressive  saying:  "  In  this 
world  all  Good,  even  the  fairest  and  noblest,  —  as  Love,  — 
rests  upon  a  '  dark  ground,'  which  it  has  to  consume  with 
pain  and  convert  into  pure  spirit." 

In  one  aspect  this  wears  an  ungentle  look,  but  what  then? 
Our  sufferings  as  moral  beings,  personal  and  sympathetic, 
are  very  great ;  but  who  would  put  off  his  moral  constitu- 
tion to  escape  them :  part  with  sympathy  that  he  may  be 
sensible  of  no  sorrow,  part  with  courage  that  he  may  meet 
no  peril,  part  with  endurance  that  he  may  bear  no  cross? 
The  higher  faculties  are  none  of  them  without  their  cost; 
to  have  them  is  necessarily  to  experience  whatever  trial  and 
heart-ache  they  imply.  But  who  will  say  that  in  bestowing 
gifts  so  great,  though  involving  suffering  so  considerable, 
the  Creator  of  our  being  either  blundered  or  was  unkind  ? 

From  evil  incident  to  a  moral  nature  we  pass  to  moral 
evil.  Of  the  consequences  of  this,  the  sufferings  it  entails, 
no  extended  exhibition  need  be  made.  Great,  indeed,  is 
the  complaint  of  such  suffering,  the  blight  which  follows 
vice,  the  woes  of  treachery,  malice,  cruelty,  tyranny; 
and  from  none  is  the  complaint  more  dolorous  than  from 
those  most  critical  of  the  moral  legislation  of  the  universe. 
But  what  would  they  have  as  the  consequence  of  these 
orders  of  conduct?  Admitting  them  to  be  wrong,  as  of 
course  they  do,  would  they  have  happiness  follow  them? 


390  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

Would  they  have  Peter  deny  his  Master  and  shed  no 
tears  afterwards?  Judas  betray  him  and  spend  his  thirty 
pieces  with  untroubled  conscience?  Would  they  have 
devious  paths  lead  to  the  same  issue  as  straight  ones,  — 
the  way  of  obedience  the  way  of  peace,  the  way  of  disobe- 
dience the  way  of  peace  no  less :  philanthropist  and  ex- 
tortioner, saint  and  profligate,  holy  woman  and  harlot, 
travel  by  opposite  roads  to  a  like  felicity :  under  a  com- 
mon heaven  a  common  smile  for  all?  Under  such  a  rule 
as  this,  —  woe,  only  woe  to  the  world  !  However  hard  the 
penalty  may  look  in  a  particular  case,  the  most  persuasive 
argument  the  optimist  can  offer  for  his  faith  is  drawn  from 
the  suffering  which  inevitably  follows  wrong.  If  the  law 
of  the  Lord  is  perfect,  evil  must  follow  infraction  of  it. 
Out  of  the  light  must  be  into  the  darkness ;  out  of  the 
warmth  must  be  into  the  cold.  The  sufferings  for  sin  of 
which  the  complaints  are  so  fervid,  bear  unmistakable  tes- 
timony that  the  core  of  things  is  true.  "  All  is  well,"  says 
an  American  preacher,  "  for  if  there  is  anything  that  is  not 
well,  it  is  well  that  it  is  not  well."  It  is  well  that  falsity 
and  hate  are  not  well ;  that  malice  and  envy  and  cruelty 
are  not  well.  What  hope  for  the  world  or  what  trust  in 
God  if  they  were  well  ? 

But  granting  it  not  inconsistent  with  the  benevolence  of 
God  that  penalty  should  be  linked  with  transgression,  there 
■iis  yet  the  further  question  :  "  How  does  it  consist  with  the 
holiness  of  God  to  admit  so  much  unholiness  in  human 
life?"^  This  is  Dr.  Martineau's  question,  and  in  dealing 
with  it  he  remarks  first  on  the  contrast  between  the  attitude 
here  taken,  and  that  which  is  common  when  the  course  of 
nature  is  under  consideration.  The  moral  censors  of  nature 
are  wont  to  dwell  upon  her  apparent  fatalism :  her  storm 
and  flood  and  pestilence  know  no  relenting.  Here  the 
complaint  rather   is  the  excessive  scope  of  contingency. 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  p.  lOO. 


GOD   AND    CONSCIENCE  391 

Why  was  not  man  so  made  that  he  could  only  choose  to 
be  good?  The  necessity  of  nature, —  how  dark  a  fact! 
The  freedom  of  man,  —  how  bodeful  its  consequences  ! 

In  both  cases  most  true ;  but  as  we  found  reason  for  the 
steadfastness  of  nature,  there  may  be  justification  of  the 
freedom  of  man.  Provisionally  there  is  this  to  observe, 
that  could  man  choose  only  the  good,  he  were  incapable  of 
moral  choice  at  all.  His  truthfulness  and  kindliness  were 
as  unmoral  as  the  sunshine  and  the  blossoms.  In  the  ne- 
cessity of  nature,  as  we  have  seen,  there  is  provision  for  her 
stability ;  in  the  freedom  of  man  is  provision  for  his  mo- 
rality ;  and  to  this  Dr.  Martineau  feels  that  the  very  right- 
eousness of  God  must  lead  him.  "A  universe,"  says  he, 
"which  no  sin  could  invade,  neither  could  any  character 
inhabit :  and,  in  insisting  that  every  access  be  shut  against 
moral  evil,  we  ask  the  holiness  of  God  to  cancel  its  own 
conditions,  and  take  away  the  alternatives  which  reveal  and 
reproduce  it.  It  is  because  He  is  Holy  and  cannot  be  con- 
tent with  an  unmoral  world  where  all  the  perfection  is  given 
and  none  is  earned,  that  he  refuses  to  render  guilt  impos- 
sible and  inward  harmony  mechanical :  were  he  only  be- 
nevolent, it  would  suffice  to  fill  his  creation  with  the  joy  of 
sentient  existence;  but,  being  righteous  too,  he  would 
have  in  his  presence  beings  nearer  to  himself,  determining 
themselves  by  free  preference  to  the  life  which  he  ap- 
proves :  and  preference  there  cannot  be,  unless  the  double 
path  is  open.  To  set  up  therefore  an  absolute  barrier 
against  the  admission  of  wrong,  is  to  arrest  the  system  of 
things  at  the  mere  natural  order,  and  detain  life  at  the  stage 
of  a  human  menagerie,  instead  of  letting  it  culminate  in  a 
moral  society."  ^ 

This  is  a  pregnant  passage,  but  its  meaning  cannot  be 
obscure.  The  lady  perhaps  affirmed  too  much  when  she 
said,  "  Take  away  my  total  depravity  and  you  take  away 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  pp.  101-102. 


392  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

everything."  She  could,  however,  most  justly  have  said  : 
Take  away  my  capacity  for  sin,  and  my  capacity  for  holi- 
ness were  gone.  In  thus  saving  me  you  would  discrown 
me ;  in  thus  releasing  me  from  the  liability  of  hell  you 
would  make  heaven  impossible.  It  does  not  enter  into 
the  conception  of  man  how  God  could  call  into  being  a 
moral  nature  that  should  not  be  free.  But  with  the  free- 
dom there  must  be  freedom  to  sin;  the  consequences  we 
deplore,  it  must  be  possible  to  incur.  A  freedom  to 
choose  only  one  thing  is  determinism  wrongly  spelled. 
But  again  and  finally,  what  would  you?  Become  a  thing 
to  avoid  the  liabilities  of  a  person?  To  escape  conse- 
quences which  in  the  exercise  of  freedom  you  need  not 
elect,  give  up  the  august  prerogative  of  a  child  of  God? 
In  the  face  of  this  alternative  most  of  us  would  surely 
decide  to  endure  Sextus  for  a  yet  longer  period. 

Thus  it  may  be  shown  that  a  multifarious  evil  may  not 
be  incompatible  with  an  infinite  Goodness.  It  may  be 
implicated  with  a  legislation  which,  with  all  the  smarts 
it  brings,  we  would  not  change.  Given  a  law-ruled  world 
tenanted  by  sensitive  organisms,  and  the  conditions  of 
suffering  are  provided.  Given  a  nature  endowed  with 
the  high  prerogative  of  moral  freedom,  and  sin  must  be 
possible.  The  suffering  and  the  sin  are  linked  with  these 
conditions,  and  if  we  would  not  change  these  conditions, 
it  hardly  becomes  us  as  rational  beings  to  impeach  the 
Universal  Throne  because  of  the  consequences  that  re- 
sult from  them.  Indeed,  the  only  consistent  complainer 
is  the  pessimist,  who,  since  he  conceives  all  sentient  ex- 
istence evil,  would  cancel  it  entirely.  But  the  pessimist, 
however  acute  his  reasoning  and  however  sincere  his 
proclamation,  the  suffering  multitude  do  not  take  seri- 
ously. They  conceive  him  a  melancholy  jester.  Human 
nature  repudiates  his  creed  ;  and  the  deed  that  should 
witness  its  consistent  acceptance  is  held  to  be  the  supreme 


GOD   AND   CONSCIENCE  393 

proof  that  reason  is  dethroned.  And  where  is  pessimism 
found?  Not  in  the  cottages  of  the  poor:  the  laborer, 
returning  weary  at  night  to  his  scarce  comfortable  home 
and  scanty  meal,  will  rarely  hold  even  a  passing  dalliance 
with  this  creed  of  despair  ;  not  in  the  chamber  of  the 
suffering :  here,  where  pain  racks  the  body,  how  often  the 
soul  makes  its  own  the  promise,  "  When  thou  passest 
through  the  waters,  I  will  be  with  thee ;  and  through  the 
rivers,  they  shall  not  overflow  thee  ;  "  you  may  not  look 
for  it  in  the  wife  whose  husband  has  dishonored  her,  nor  in 
the  mother  whose  son  has  brought  anguish  to  her  heart. 
It  is  beyond  peradventure  true  that  where,  according  to 
earth's  common  judgment,  a  faith  in  the  Divine  Goodness 
is  most  needed,  there  it  is  most  surely  found.  Strange 
fact !  This  dark  doctrine  is  met  scarce  anywhere  but  in 
books,  a  product  of  the  minds  of  the  Schopenhauers  and 
the  Hartmanns,  men  of  lettered  ease,  who,  amid  surround- 
ings of  comfort,  evolve  a  theory  of  a  universe  without  rela- 
tion with  a  personal  God,  and  then  wail  out  its  threnody. 

But  ceasing  to  contemplate  the  evil  of  the  world,  let  us 
turn  briefly  to  the  good,  which,  in  considering  the  Divine 
Perfection,  is  held  to  count  for  something.  To  the  happi- 
ness of  the  lower  creatures,  to  the  happiness  and  higher 
welfare  of  man,  is  the  administration  of  the  world  favora- 
ble? To  these  ends  rather  than  to  their  opposites  is  it 
really  ordered?  Consider  for  a  moment  the  lower  ani- 
mals. Their  range  is  narrow:  physical  happiness  with 
a  brief  enjoyment  of  their  young  [if  not  too  low  for  this], 
and  the  company  of  their  kind  [if  they  are  gregarious]  ; 
and  is  not  this  range,  barring  vicissitude  which  we  have 
noticed,  secured  to  them?  As  for  physical  happiness, — 
the  normal  exercise  of  every  function  brings  that.  It  is 
impossible  to  observe  the  cattle  grazing  on  the  hillsides, 
or  the  birds  skimming  through  the  air,  or  the  fishes  dart- 


394  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

ing  through  the  water,  and  not  feel  that  they  are  happy. 
Their  happiness,  too,  from  the  hmitation  of  their  nature, 
is  unalloyed  by  anxiety.  The  deer  that  escaped  the 
hunter  yesterday  browses  in  unconcern  to-day,  and  the 
bird,  forgetting  experience  of  hunger,  feeds  as  on  crumbs 
dropped  from  the  eternal  tables.  For  most  part  in  the 
life  of  the  creature  there  is  happiness  till  the  time  of  its 
taking  off  has  come,  and  then  how  soon  all  is  over  !  Even 
the  sufferings  of  that  taking  off  it  is  probable  that  our 
human  sympathies  greatly  exaggerate.  Dr.  Martineau 
asks  what  harm  were  done  if  nature  prescribed  some 
anaesthetic  to  her  victims.  A  modern  writer,  teaching 
that  God  is  ever  kind  to  the  victim  of  the  inevitable,  main- 
tains that  he  has  provided  a  "  universal  anaesthetic,"  that 
in  the  clutch  of  death  there  is  no  pain. 

As  regards  the  gregarious  life  of  animals,  it  is  possible 
to  exaggerate  the  tranquillity ;  and  probably  Dr.  Martineau 
does  so  when  he  tells  us  that  "the  herbivorous  families 
have  no  victims,  and  but  for  their  enemies  would  live  at 
peace  with  all."  If  they  carry  on  no  foreign  wars,  it  is 
certain  that  they  have  their  internal  strifes  which  are  often 
quite  as  serious.  Yet  their  enjoyment  of  one  another's 
society  is  very  real,  and  in  a  state  of  nature  it  is  seldom 
denied  them.  The  enjoyment  of  their  young,  too,  is  given 
to  all  creatures  capable  of  it.  However  ferocious  the 
nature,  in  the  lair  of  the  tigress  and  the  nest  of  the  eagle 
there  is  peace. 

Look  next  to  man.  To  his  happiness  and  welfare  is 
the  order  of  the  world  favorable?  True,  he  has  intenser 
and  more  varied  suffering  than  the  animal;  but  this 
follows  upon  provision  for  intenser  and  more  varied  joy. 
Unlike  the  animal  he  dreads,  but  unlike  the  animal  he 
hopes.  The  greater  difficulties  and  the  greater  perils  are 
his  portion ;  but  likewise  the  consciousness  of  victory, 
which    they   can    never   know.      For    his    keener   suffer- 


GOD   AND    CONSCIENCE  395 

ing,  too,  there  are  compensatory  privileges :  beauty,  art, 
song,  delight  in  nature,  sympathy  of  friends.  How  many, 
smitten  with  infirmity  from  which  the  beast  could  only 
suffer,  have  found  a  solace  in  some  wisely  directed  activity 
of  intellect.  I  have  known  a  man  whose  somewhat  unique 
story  is  beautifully  illustrative.  His  life  was  active,  but 
his  interests  ran  wide  of  his  calling  into  the  nobler  litera- 
ture. Early  he  became  blind ;  but  he  had  stored  his 
mind  with  the  richer  poetry  which  was  his  resource  when 
other  resource  was  denied  him.  To  the  help  he  found  in 
this  he  once  bore  unconscious  testimony.  He  must  have 
his  eyes  operated  upon ;  and  after  the  operation  he  was 
lying  in  great  pain.  "  It  looked  very  dark  to  me,"  said 
he,  "  but  I  struck  into  Browning' s  Saul,  and  it  was  all 
right!'  Other  infirmity  came  upon  him ;  he  became 
helpless.  Yet  with  his  great  companions  he  lived  in  light. 
He  must  sit  apart;  but  at  will  he  could  have  the  solace  of 
Shelley's  music,  or  Browning's  song,  or  Emerson's  starry 
wisdom.  As  the  years  deepened,  he  set  about  the  prep- 
aration of  a  book,  good  in  itself  to  have,  but  simply 
precious  as  a  memento  of  the  heroism  out  of  which  it 
came.  Meeting  him,  too,  was  like  going  out  into  a  June 
morning.  The  bruised  turned  to  him  for  comfort,  the 
doubting  for  renewal  of  their  faith.  Of  course  all  have  not 
the  measure  of  his  resource ;  but  neither  have  many  the 
measure  of  his  misfortune.  In  any  aspect  his  story  is  that 
of  a  man,  and  so  tells  of  human  possibilities ;  and  probably 
there  are  few  who,  according  to  their  need,  might  not  find 
a  like  support  if  they  would  in  like  manner  appropriate 
the  means  which  the  grace  of  God  has  made  accessible. 
Concede  what  we  must  to  the  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to ;  still 
human  experience  sufficiently  testifies  that  the  legislation 
of  the  world  is  friendly  to  human  happiness. 

But  man's  higher  welfare,  —  does  nature  also  favor  this? 
Man  is  a  moral  being;   does  nature  favor  morality?     Of 


396  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

two  men  with  conditions  otherwise  equal,  suppose  one 
industrious  and  the  other  lazy;  on  which  will  nature 
smile?  Or  one  temperate  and  the  other  drunken;  which 
will  she  approve?  Or  one  clean  and  the  other  licentious; 
which  will  be  on  the  best  terms  with  her?  Few  would 
deny  that  so  far  as  man  is  industrious,  temperate,  and 
chaste,  he  has  nature  on  his  side. 

Mr.  Froude  tells  us  that  "the  tower  of  Siloam  fell,  not 
for  any  sins  of  the  eighteen  who  were  crushed  by  it,  but 
through  bad  mortar  probably."  Nature  has  such  prefer- 
ence for  the  honest  structure  that  she  pulls  down  what- 
ever we  dishonestly  build  upon  her.  All  sham  and 
pretence  she  brings  to  judgment  at  last.  Lay  your  bridge 
on  honest  piers  if  you  would  have  nature  hold  it  up ; 
build  your  ship  of  honest  timber  if  you  would  have  her 
float  it  to  the  haven.  The  lesson  of  integrity,  —  by  smile 
and  frown  she  enforces  that.  The  books  and  homilies  on 
this  subject  are  only  weaker  repetitions  of  her  lesson. 

The  discipline,  too,  through  which  the  nobler  man- 
hood is  attained,  —  it  is  undeniable  that  she  provides  this 
through  much  of  the  very  evil  of  which  we  complain.  We 
want  the  hero's  heart,  but  are  aggrieved  at  the  battle  that 
proves  it ;  we  want  patience,  but  are  critical  of  the  suffer- 
ing that  evokes  it;  we  want  sympathy,  but  not  the  kind 
of  world  in  which  it  is  possible.  Strange  we  do  not  cftener 
see  that  our  complaints  of  nature  are  based  on  the  fact 
that  she  refuses  to  favor  the  indolence  we  like  but  dis- 
approve, rather  than  the  high  service  we  shrink  from  but 
revere.  For  its  cogent  and  eloquent  presentation  of  this 
truth  we  will  appropriate  the  following  passage  from  Dr. 
Martineau :  "  For  many  men,  the  school  of  action  fairly 
serves  to  purify  and  invigorate  their  will,  though  they  ride 
through  life  on  the  crest  of  the  world's  wave  and  never 
sink  into  the  hollows.  But,  though  some  can  do  without 
it,  and  others  do  nothing  with  it,  yet  it  is  true  that,  for  the 


GOD   AND   CONSCIENCE  397 

greatest  and  best,  you  must  seek  among  those  who  have 
abounded  in  hardships  and  been  passed  through  the  fire. 
Ease  and  prosperity  may  supply  a  sufficient  school  for  the 
respectable  commoners  in  character:  but  without  suff"er- 
ing  is  no  man  ennobled.  Every  highest  form  of  excellence, 
personal,  relative,  spiritual,  rises  from  this  dark  ground, 
and  emerges  into  its  freedom  by  the  conquests  of  some 
severe  necessity.  In  what  Elysium  could  you  find  the 
sweet  patience  and  silent  self-control  of  which  every  nurse 
can  testify?  or  the  fortitude  in  right,  which  the  rack  can- 
not crush  or  the  dungeon  wear  out?  or  the  courage  of  the 
prophet,  to  fling  his  divine  word  before  the  wrath  of 
princes  and  the  mocking  of  the  people?  I  know  it  is  said, 
that  these  would  be  superfluous  virtues  there,  their  worth 
being  wholly  relative  to  the  evils  which  they  minimize. 
But  is  this  true?  Is  the  soul  which  has  never  been  sub- 
dued to  patience,  braced  to  fortitude,  fired  with  heroic 
enthusiasm,  as  harmonious,  as  strong,  as  large  and  free,  as 
that  which  has  been  schooled  in  martyrdom?  No,  the 
least  part  of  these  conquests  is  in  their  immediate  mastery 
of  the  besetting  ill :  they  add  a  cubit  to  the  moral  stature : 
they  clear  the  vision :  they  refine  the  thought :  they  ani- 
mate the  will :  so  that  there  is  not  a  duty,  however  simple, 
that  does  not  win  from  them  a  fresh  grace,  or  a  mood, 
however  common,  to  which  they  do  not  give  a  richer 
tone."  ^  Indeed,  without  the  trials  of  which  we  tell  so 
plaintively,  noble  character  were  at  best  only  a  nascent 
possibility.  Nature  is  a  stern  schoolmaster,  but  what 
other  can  educate  so  well? 

But  grant  that  nature  educates ;  the  being  whom  she 
thus  favors  does  she  otherwise  favor?  Are  the  wise,  the 
brave,  the  just,  the  gentle,  especially  cared  for  in  her  legis- 
lation? Certainly,  for  just  and  unjust  alike  are  heat  and 
cold  and  storm  and  pestilence ;   and  what  do  we  read  in 

^  Study  of  Religioji,  vol.  ii.  pp.  94-95. 


398  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

history  if  not  of  the  rebuffs  of  the  wise,  the  exile  of  the 
patriot,  the  stake  of  the  martyr? 

Growth  in  excellence  is  not  escape  from  vicissitude; 
nor  is  there  pledge  to  any  excellence  that  in  the  inevitable 
conflicts  it  shall  conquer  without  struggle.  It  is  often  said 
that  the  rule  of  the  world  is  to  superior  force,  a  proposi- 
tion which  Dr.  Martineau  declares  to  be  true  of  all  possible 
worlds,  like  the  statement,  the  warmer  you  are  the  less 
cold  you  will  be.  "  By  the  weakest,"  says  he,  "  we  mean 
that  which  goes  to  the  wall :  by  the  strongest,  that  which 
prevails."  On  the  same  page  he  adds :  "  Alter  the  world 
as  you  will,  .  .  .  still  that  which  prevails  will  be  the 
strongest,  and  all  things  will  go  by  might."  ^  Might,  how- 
ever, is  various  in  kind,  and  we  hardly  know  what  this 
judgment  means  until  kinds  of  might  are  scrutinized.  We 
cannot  say  the  superior  force  is  always  physical,  for  then, 
in  the  encounter  with  man,  the  bear  or  the  buffalo  would 
always  be  invincible.  Nor  can  we  say  it  is  physical  in 
co-operation  with  mental,  for  then  to  a  preponderance  of 
these  there  should  always  be  victory ;  whereas  with  the 
odds,  as  we  reckon,  in  their  favor,  how  often  and  igno- 
minious has  been  their  failure.  For  there  is  another  force 
called  moral  force,  which  springs  from  the  conscious  ser- 
vice of  right  or  truth,  and  this,  especially  when  supported 
by  religious  faith,  may  make  weakness  invincible.  "  Prov- 
idence is  on  the  side  of  the  heaviest  battalions,"  said 
Napoleon ;  yet  even  he  did  not  neglect  to  appeal  to  his 
soldiers  with  whatever  sentiment  should  enkindle  them. 
There  were  as  brave  men  in  the  armies  of  Charles  I.  as  in 
those  of  Cromwell,  and  the  weight  of  material  advantage 
was  on  their  side;  but  they  lacked  the  deeper  inspiration 
that  made  the  Ironsides  invincible.  That  Spain  with  the 
best  army  in  Europe  would  crush  the  Netherland  revolt 
must  have  seemed  probable  enough  to  those  who  could 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  p.  iii. 


GOD  AND   CONSCIENCE  399 

not  reckon  on  the  faith,  inspiring  what  devotion  and  dar- 
ing, of  William  of  Orange  and  his  followers.  When  an 
American  woman  in  Italy  plunged  between  two  duellists 
who  were  stabbing  at  each  other,  and  awed  them  into 
desistance,  where  was  the  superior  force?  When  at 
Worms  a  solitary  monk  flung  defiance  to  a  Church  and 
an  Empire,  where  was  it? 

It  is  not  pretended  that  the  true  or  the  right,  become  an 
enthralling  sentiment,  meets  no  reverses.  Often,  indeed, 
it  seems  defeated,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Huguenots  or  the 
Waldenses.  But  wait.  The  battle  of  French  Protestantism 
was  not  fought  out  when  the  Edict  of  Nantes  was  revoked, 
nor  when  the  last  refugee  fled  before  the  brutalities  of  the 
Dragonade.  Which  at  this  day  does  the  world  approve, — 
Bossuet,  applauding  the  most  cruel  trampling  upon  Prot- 
estant liberties,  or  Martineau,  throwing  himself  into  the 
breach  in  defence  of  Catholic  rights?  Dr.  Martineau's 
own  judgment  should  be  given  place  here :  "  Can  anyone 
name  a  good  cause  which,  —  not  locally,  but  in  the  world 
at  large, — has  perished  and  had  no  resurrection?  Inter- 
vals of  suspended  animation  there  may  be :  but  the  final 
mortality  of  the  *  better  part '  I  must  utterly  disbelieve. 
When  we  say  of  the  baffled  reformer,  '  he  was  born  before 
his  time'  we  confess  our  assurance  that  his  time  must 
come,  and  betray  the  fact  that,  for  us  at  least,  it  has 
already  come."  ^ 

Further  illustration  of  this  theme  may  not  be  needful. 
That  there  are  yet  grave  considerations  we  know ;  that  our 
reasoning  can  yield  more  than  a  tentative  satisfaction  we 
have  no  confidence  to  suppose ;  to  deal  adequately  with 
the  problem,  we  are  probably  some  millenniums  too  soon. 

Our  light  is  not  yet  clear ;  but  if  unequal  to  the  needs 
of  sight,  it  may  satisfy  the  needs  of  faith.  Dr.  Martineau's 
laborious  contention  is  that  the  order  of  the  world   does 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  p.  122. 


400  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

not  in  its  moral  features  contradict  the  oracle  in  the  breast ; 
so  much  assured,  we  may  hold  in  confidence  the  convic- 
tion that  the  God  who  imposes  a  righteous  law  upon  us 
does  all  things  in  righteousness,  though  perhaps  only  to 
those  who 

"  watch,  like  God,  the  rolling  hours 
With  larger,  other  eyes  than  ours," 

can  the  truth  ever  be  clearly  manifest. 


.     CHAPTER  IV 

HIS   CRITICISM   OF  PANTHEISM 

But  however  satisfactory  the  conclusions  we  have  reached, 
there  is  a  problem  yet  before  us  the  consideration  of  which 
will  ratify  them  or  nullify  them  according  to  the  issue  of 
our  study  of  it.  We  deal  now  with  the  more  general 
conception  of  the  Divine  Nature.  There  are  three  forms 
which  this  has  taken,  and  yet  takes :  — 

I.  The  first,  met  now  only  in  the  lower  ranges  of  intel- 
ligence, was  once  the  ascendant  doctrine  through  one  of 
the  fairest  sections  of  the  world.  It  affirmed  a  God  wholly 
transcending  the  universe,  which  he  had  created  at  a  defi- 
nite time  and  given  over  to  the  governance  of  second 
causes.  This  God  was  infinite,  eternal,  omnipotent,  all- 
wise,  but  "  absentee."  He  so  appointed  the  cosmic 
mechanism  that  it  might  run  on  without  friction,  but  he 
himself  dwelt  afar.  His  Providence  was  here;  the  light 
of  nature  made  it  plain.  It  was,  however,  a  grace  given 
once  for  all,  not  one  that  was  immediately  and  personally 
exercised. 

This,  of  course,  was  Deism,  —  the  doctrine  that  in  the 
England  and  France  of  the  eighteenth  century  held  the 
high  places  of  thought.  With  this  Dr.  Martineau's  teach- 
ing, though  the  system  as  a  whole  no  one  would  repudiate 
more  earnestly  than  he,  is  not  wholly  dissonant.  He  also 
teaches  the  Divine  Transcendency ;  while  the  Infinite  Cause 
and  the  Infinite  Righteousness  he  so  eloquently  proclaims 
were  earnestly  taught  by  the  deists  likewise.  Their  cause, 
however,  had  accomplished  the  grand  efi'ect,  the  cosmos 
we  look  out  upon,  and  ever  since  had  rested  from  causal 

26 


402  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

labors  ;  which  is  the  inversion  of  Dr.  Martineau's  teaching. 
Their  Righteousness  was  a  legacy  of  a  departed  Deity,  not 
an  ever-flowing  and  insistent  oracle  :  a  difference  that  places 
him  and  them  at  opposite  poles  of  thought. 

2.  Over  against  the  conception  of  Divine  Transcendency 
is  that  of  Divine  Immanence,  which,  pushed  to  its  extreme, 
is  Pantheism.  As  the  former,  deistically  interpreted,  makes 
God  wholly  extra-mundane,  so  the  latter,  pantheistically 
conceived,  makes  him  wholly  intra-mundane.  The  God  of 
Pantheism  is  an  enchanting  Presence  within  the  universe, 
extending  throughout  its  extent,  Life  of  its  life,  Soul  of  its 
soul.  He  is  the  only  reality;  matter  and  mind  are  but 
phenomena  of  him.  This  is  one  form  of  the  doctrine,  and 
there  is  another.  The  word  Pantheism,  while  naming  the 
conception  of  all  things  in  God,  also  names  a  conception 
that  maintains  that  all  things  are  God.  While,  according 
to  the  one,  God  is  the  soiil  of  things,  according  to  the 
other,  he  is  the  sum  of  things.  Professor  Howison  in- 
geniously marks  the  distinction  by  varying  the  emphatic 
syllable  of  the  word,  —  Pan-'Ccv^xsm.  and  Yzxi-theism,  using 
the  former  to  designate  the  thesis  that  all  is  God,  and  the 
latter,  the  reverse  contention  that  God  is  all.  Pantheism 
of  the  former  type,  however,  seems  atheism  with  less  ob- 
jectionable name.  While,  too,  this  type  of  Pantheism  is 
strictly  atheistic,  the  other  is  as  strictly  aeosmic.  The 
former  loses  God  in  the  universe;  the  latter  loses  the 
universe  in  God. 

Before  stating  the  third  conception  of  the  Divine  Nature, 
it  may  be  well  to  inquire  how,  in  strength  and  weakness, 
Pantheism  may  compare  with  Deism.  The  Pantheism  we 
shall  hold  before  us  will  be  the  spiritual  type. 

It  is  clear  that  Pantheism  may  yield  a  sense  of  the  Di- 
vine Presence  that  Deism  from  its  very  nature  could  not 
give.  Deism  was  not  the  creed  of  feeble  intellects ;  and 
that  it  yielded  intellectual   satisfactions  is   plain  enough. 


HIS   CRITICISM   OF   PANTHEISM  403 

Its  failure,  however,  to  minister  to  the  deeper  needs  of  the 
spirit  was  most  signal.  From  its  contact  the  altar  fires 
died  down  to  the  flickering,  and  a  chill  crept  upon  the 
souls  of  men.  Devotion  asks  a  God,  not  listening  from 
the  skies,  but  present  at  its  altar ;  and  is  well  pleased  to 
think  of  him  as  inbreathing  the  prayer  it  offers.  The  char- 
acteristic longing  of  devotion,  not  to  be  reconciled  to,  but 
to  commune  with  and  be  swallowed  up  in  God,  is  met,  as 
Deism  could  not  meet  it,  by  that  conception  of  Divine 
Immanence  on  which  Pantheism  builds.  Our  more  rever- 
ent meditations,  in  proportion  as  they  are  rapturous  and 
exalted,  though  we  may  not  be  pantheists,  are  likely  to  be 
pantheistic.  Theodore  Parker  was  not  a  pantheist;  yet, 
speaking  out  of  the  fervors  of  his  heart,  how  often  did  he 
pantheize  !  ^  Many  hold  that  Emerson  was  not  a  pantheist, 
yet  what  comforting  quotations  the  pantheist  may  gather 
from  his  page  !  The  great  mystics  are  continually  putting 
forth  sayings  which,  interpreted  from  the  intellect  and 
not  the  spirit,  should  tell  us  of  one  Essence  or  Substance 
by  which  this  glowing  universe  and  we  ourselves  are  per- 
vaded, the  Reality  and  Unity  of  all.  Thus  Eckhart  says : 
"The  words  I  am  none  can  truly  speak  but  God  alone. 
He  has  the  substance  of  all  creatures  in  Himself."  "  He  is 
a  Being  that  has  all  Being  in  himself"  "  All  things  are  in 
God,  and  all  things  are  God."  To  like  tenor  we  may  quote 
from  William  Law :  "  Everything  that  is  in  being,  is  either 
God,  or  nature,  or  creature  ;  and  everything  that  is  not  God 
is  only  a  manifestation  of  God."  Let  us  hear  also  Emer- 
son: "  From  within  or  from  behind,  a  light  shines  through 
us  upon  things  and  makes  us  aware  that  we  are  nothing,  but 
the  light  is  all.  A  man  is  the  facade  of  a  temple  wherein 
all  wisdom  and  all  good  abide."     "  Ineffable  is  the  union 

1  I  find  that  pantheize  is  not  a  dictionary  word.  It  was,  however,  used  by 
Dr.  F.  H.  Hedge,  once  my  teacher,  and  from  whose  lips  I  caught  it.  It  if 
also  to  be  found  in  his  writings.     See  Ways  of  the  Spirit,  p.  254. 


404  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

of  man  and  God  in  every  act  of  the  soul.  The  simplest 
person  who  in  his  integrity  worships  God,  becomes  God : 
yet  for  ever  and  ever  the  influx  of  this  better  and  universal 
self  is  new  and  unsearchable."  The  same  feeling  again 
throbs  in  the  sweet  lines  of  Madame  Guyon, — 

"  I  love  the  Lord  —  but  with  no  love  of  mine, 
For  I  have  none  to  give  ; 
I  love  the  Lord  —  but  with  a  love  divine, 

For  by  thy  love  I  live. 
I  am  as  nothing,  and  rejoice  to  be 
Emptied  and  lost,  and  swallowed  up  in  Thee." 

To  like  tenor  might  we  illustrate  indefinitely.  The  mystic 
may  be  given  wide  range  as  to  his  faith  or  his  philosophy: 
he  may  be  Protestant  or  Catholic ;  he  may  be  Jew,  Mo- 
hammedan, Brahman ;  but  he  can  hardly  be  Deist.  The 
like  contrast  of  influence,  too,  we  mark  in  the  higher  liter- 
ature. Poetry,  for  instance,  —  in  what  other  age  or  coun- 
try was  it  so  soulless  and  mechanical  as  in  the  England 
of  deistic  ascendency?  Good  intellect  and  good  taste  we 
find  in  it,  but  how  rarely  the  higher  joy  !  From  Pope  and 
Johnson  we  gather  marble  and  millinery  blossoms;  from 
Spenser  and  Wordsworth  the  flowers  of  Hesperides,  To 
the  former  something  is  wanting,  —  a  dulness  is  in  the 
vision,  a  frost  in  the  air,  —  the  meaning  of  which  the  phil- 
osophic student  of  letters  will  not  look  far  to  find.  To 
the  latter  this  something  is  given  in  rich  measure.  The 
subtle  appropriations  of  the  spirit  we  may  not  clearly 
understand,  but  we  are  sensible  of  them;  and,  to  a  nature 
so  sensitive  as  the  poet's,  we  can  easily  see  that,  whether 
the  universe  shall  seem  a  mechanism  or  a  theophany,  may 
make  inestimable  difference.  Goethe  voiced  not  himself 
alone,  but  the  poet  of  whatever  time  whose  genius  calls 
him  to  the  loftier  themes,  when  he  wrote,  — 

"  No !  such  a  God  my  worship  may  not  win, 
Who  lets  the  world  about  his  finger  spin 
A  thing  extern ;  my  God  must  dwell  within." 


HIS   CRITICISM   OF   PANTHEISM  405 

This  various  illustration  shows  that  whatever  satisfaction 
dcistical  conceptions  may  furnish  the  intellect,  the  mystic 
and  poetic  sensibilities  they  do  not  favor.  The  intenser 
fervor  and  the  loftier  meditation  and  the  more  rapturous 
vision  are  not  of  their  inspiring. 

But  on  the  intellectual  side  Deism  will  not  bear  the 
closest  scrutiny.  It  teaches  that  God  —  a  potter,  a  car- 
penter —  created  the  universe  at  a  definite  time.  Grant 
that  since  that  time  God  and  the  universe  have  been  two 
facts ;  prior  to  that  time  there  must  have  been  an  eternity 
in  which  God  was  all.  But  how  out  of  his  all-inclusive 
unity  did  he  establish  a  duality?  How  out  of  himself, 
without  abridgment  of  himself,  could  he  furnish  that 
which  should  be  antithetic  to  himself?  Is  he  indeed 
infinite?  How,  then,  can  the  universe  be  outside  of  him? 
Is  it  contained  in  him?  Then  it  is  manifestation  of  him: 
its  power  his  power,  its  life  his  life ;  with  which  con- 
clusion Deism  is  no  more.  But  other  queries:  From 
eternity  God  was  sole  Essence;  was  he,  then,  self-con- 
scious? It  is  commonly  held  that  self-consciousness  is 
only  possible  in  the  presence  of  another  than  self,  admit- 
ting which,  we  seem  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  this 
lonely  occupant  of  eternity,  since  unable  to  say  of  another 
nature,  //  is,  could  not  say  of  himself,  I  am.  But  he  was 
conceived  as  Intelligence  and  Will.  The  intelligence,  then, 
must  have  been  self-centred,  since  there  was  nothing 
beyond  self  on  which  to  direct  it ;  and  for  the  like  reason 
the  will  must  have  been  potential,  not  active.  We  are 
given,  then,  a  God  throughout  an  eternity,  self-contempla- 
tive and  inert;  a  conception  that  may  provoke  our  wonder 
but  hardly  kindle  our  raptures.  But  come  to  the  creative 
act.  Following  a  determination  of  his  will,  he  evolves 
out  of  himself  a  cosmos.  To  what  end?  Did  he  need  it 
for  his  perfection?  Then  why  for  an  eternity  did  he  do 
without   it?      Was   he   without   need?      Why,    then,   the 


406  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

Stupendous  superfluity?  Turning  from  the  creation  to  the 
government  of  the  world,  the  deistic  attitude  is  not  less 
unsatisfactory.  The  God  of  Deism  being  an  "  absentee  " 
God,  the  government  of  the  world  is  devolved  upon 
second  causes.  These  are  the  great  forces  of  nature, 
appointed  to  their  several  provinces  and  working  to  an 
appointed  end,  yet  entirely  insulated  from  the  First  Cause. 
While  there  is  scope  here  for  the  conception  of  occasional 
Divine  visitations  in  order  to  adjust  some  disturbed  rela- 
tions or  to  inaugurate  some  new  departure,  the  general 
impression  is  that  of  mechanism,  and  that  only.  The 
second  causes  take  the  place  of  the  First  Cause ;  we  deal 
with  his  agents,  not  with  God.  All  goes  so  well  without 
him  that  if  he  were  to  go  to  sleep  what  would  it  signify? 
Whatever  we  may  say  of  its  need  or  its  beauty,  worship 
will  be  without  ardor  when  God  is  superfluous.  To  em- 
brace atheism  in  place  of  belief  in  such  a  God  implies  no 
sad  transition.  The  second  causes  may  no  doubt  chal- 
lenge our  wonder,  but  they  yield  not  the  satisfactions  of  an 
Immanent  Will  with  which  we  immediately  deal. 

But  has  the  deistic  view  no  features  that  commend  it? 
Yes,  it  has  two,  the  worth  of  which  appears  in  the  mere 
statement  of  them.  First,  it  gives  to  the  supreme  object 
of  religious  feeling  a  distinctness  of  conception,  which  to 
the  average  mind  is  very  satisfying.  Indeed,  it  is  easy  to 
see  that  the  doctrine  is  the  natural  and  prevailing  one 
with  those  who  toil  and  pray,  but  do  not  meditate. 
Secondly,  though  suggestive  of  an  "  elder  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury," the  God  of  Deism  is  always  a  person.  But  from 
Pantheism,  as  set  over  against  Deism,  are  there  no  deduc- 
tions to  be  made?  Indeed,  there  are.  While  there  are 
individual  minds  that  can  find  in  it  all  content,  to  the 
great  majority  its  conception  of  God  is  nebulous  and 
vague.  A  spirit  diffused  through  the  universe  is  easily 
blended  with,  and  so  lost  in,  the  forces  of  the  universe,  and 


HIS   CRITICISM   OF  PANTHEISM  407 

thus  personality  is  lost.  On  the  spiritual  side  it  has  short- 
comings also.  While  in  its  warmer  presentation  Pantheism 
is  capable  of  the  inspirations  we  have  referred  to  it,  there  is 
another  presentation  of  it,  which  in  its  general  influence 
is  quite  otherwise.  When  the  devout  soul  communes 
with  a  mystic  Presence,  —  the  life,  soul,  love  of  all,  —  then 
the  wilderness  becomes  a  garden  and  the  poorest  flowers 
are  passion-flowers.  But  when  the  mystic  Presence  yields 
to  the  philosophical  One  Substance,  contemplation  seems 
rather  to  take  hold  upon  an  Alpine  crest,  dazzling  in  the 
light  it  may  be,  yet  on  whose  icy  surface  only  the  pale 
and  struggling  edelweiss  can  blossom.  At  a  later  stage 
of  our  discussion  we  shall  come  to  other  and  more  signifi- 
cant deductions. 

3.  While  one  of  these  conceptions  maintains  the  Tran- 
scendency and  the  other  the  Immanence  of  the  Divine 
Nature,  there  is  a  third  that  combines  the  two.  God  tran- 
scends the  universe,  it  says,  yet  is  immanent  in  it ;  is 
immanent  in  it,  yet  transcends  it;  is  above  all,  yet  in 
all ;  the  soul  of  the  world,  yet  infinitely  more.  This  is  Dr. 
Martineau's  Theism.  We  say  Dr.  Martineau's ;  for  while 
he  maintains  the  common  theistic  attitude,  which  pro- 
claims a  personal  God  in  immediate  relation  with  the 
universe  and  with  man,  the  Transcendency  which  he  holds 
somewhat  resolutely  is  not  common  to  all  theists.  Its 
special  significance  in  his  thought  we  shall  see. 

Theism  as  defined  above  is  the  successor  of  Deism ;  in 
what  aspect  is  it  the  preferable  faith?  It  comes  into  the 
field  as  the  foe  of  Pantheism;  what  fairer  view  has  it  to 
ofi"er? 

For  the  far-off  God  of  Deism  it  gives  us  a  God  ever 
nigh.  Deism  gave  God  a  heaven  to  dwell  in ;  Theism 
finds  the  earth  consecrated  by  his  Presence.  This 
change  brings  relief  from  a  difficulty  not  slight.  The 
conception  of  a  God  infinite,  yet  not  present  in  the  uni- 


408  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

verse;  infinite,  yet  an  "elder  Lord  Shaftesbury"  sitting  in 
state  beyond  the  stars,  is  inherently  untenable.  Accord- 
ingly it  is  a  view  that  representative  deists  were  ever 
slipping  away  from.  Thus  Thomas  Morgan,  often  ranked 
with  the  deists  and  in  certain  aspects  of  his  doctrine  no 
doubt  belonging  with  them,  held  as  atheists  those  who 
denied  God's  immediate  influence  in  the  world.  Toland, 
too,  one  of  the  chief  figures  among  the  deists,  coined  the 
very  word  "  Pantheism,"  in  order  to  set  forth  his  own  atti- 
tude of  mind  as  one  who  believed  in  a  God  who  was  the 
"Mind  and  Soul  of  the  universe."  Sir  Isaac  Newton  also 
was  a  deist;  yet  he  speaks  of  a  God  as  omnipresent, 
"  non  per  viriutem  solum,  sed  etiam  per  substantiam."  Such 
lapses  from  the  cardinal  deistic  doctrine  are  not  uncom- 
mon in  the  deistic  writers  ;  and  they  illustrate,  we  may 
dare  to  say,  not  Theism  gained,  but  Deism  not  firmly 
held.  The  embarrassment  involved  here  is  escaped  when 
the  transition  to  Theism  is  accomplished,  and  heaven  and 
earth  alike  are  made  God's  dwelling-place  and  temple. 
The  transition  brings  a  spiritual  satisfaction  likewise. 
Dr.  Martineau  remarks  that  "  if  anything,  in  the  Natural 
Religion  of  the  last  century,  could  lay  strong  hold  of  the 
devout  imagination,  it  was  the  idea  of  the  Omnipresence 
of  God."  ^  The  reason  for  his  specifying  the  last  century 
is  plain  enough :  the  prevailing  conditions  of  thought 
were  then  such  as  to  make  it  by  contrast  especially  im- 
pressive; it  was  like  a  gleam  of  sunshine  through  arctic 
night.  He  also  remarks  that  "  were  the  experiences  of 
early  life  laid  open,  during  its  years  of  growing  fervour  and 
self-discipline,  it  would  probably  be  found  that,  both  in 
the  orisons  of  the  closet  and  in  the  encounter  with  temp- 
tation, the  attempt  to  realize  this  thought  played  a  great 
part  and  wielded  the  chief  power,"  Yet  a  little  further  on 
he  says:   "  Hence  it  is  that,  except  in  an  apathetic  age,  or 

1  Sttidy  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  p.  i6i. 


HIS   CRITICISM   OF  PANTHEISM  409 

among  persons  of  level  temperament,  the  Deistical  con- 
ception fails  to  satisfy,  and  scarcely  passes  into  a  religion: 
once  flung  into  awakening  vicissitudes  or  more  impas- 
sioned natures,  it  breaks  its  bounds  and  seeks  a  nearer 
God."  ^  He  might  have  added,  only  that  it  was  the  pan- 
theistic view  that  he  had  before  his  mind,  that  all  the 
mystic  raptures  that  Pantheism  enkindles  have  their  con- 
dition in  Theism.  The  mystic  and  poetic  utterances  we 
have  quoted  as  of  pantheistic  inspiration  might  as  easily 
have  flown  from  an  exuberance  of  theistic  joy.  Theism 
enchants  the  universe :  it  gives  to  the  hills  a  Presence  that 
consecrates  them,  and  to  the  stars  that  glorifies  them.  It 
is  the  faith  of  Paul  when  he  tells  of  one  who  is  above  all, 
and  through  all,  and  in  you  all ;  and  of  David  when  he 
sings.  If  I  ascend  up  into  heaven,  thou  art  there :  if  I  make 
my  bed  in  hell,  behold,  thou  art  there. 

Thus,  through  its  doctrine  of  Divine  Immanence,  does 
Theism  surpass  Deism  in  the  satisfactions  that  it  yields. 
But  the  Transcendency  which  Dr.  Martineau  maintains  so 
earnestly  —  what  gain  from  that?  Before  answering  we 
should  see  more  definitely  what  transcendency  means. 
He  takes  pains  to  tell  us  that  the  terms  "  transcendent " 
and  "  immanent,"  as  applied  to  the  Divine  Nature,  should 
not  be  used,  as  they  often  are,  as  equivalent  to  external 
and  internal,  "  as  if  the  contrast  in  question  had  reference 
only  to  position  Jiere  or  their."  ^  While  Immanence  means 
the  Divine  Presence  in  every  part  of  the  universe.  Tran- 
scendency implies  "  transcending  the  universe  in  every 
way,  as  infinite,  as  eternal,  as  source,  as  perfection." 
It  tells  us  that  the  sum  of  things,  however  vast,  cannot  be 
commensurate  with  his  infinity;  that,  grant  the  universe 
his  theophany,  God  is  not  to  be  measured  by  his  manifes- 
tation. However  we  may  see  him  in  it,  he  yet  was  before 
it,  and  could  it  perish,  he  would  survive  it.     The  signifi- 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  p.  162.  ^  73/^.  p.  j^i. 


410  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

cance  of  this  consideration  to  the  theistic  problem  we  may 
now  discern.  Theism,  in  maintaining  the  Divine  Imma- 
nence, may  be  on  undeniable  ground,  but  there  is  a  line 
of  danger  towards  which  it  is  ever  pressing.  Starting 
with  a  theistic  assumption  of  the  presence  of  God  in  the 
universe,  one  may  at  length  identify  him  with  its  interior 
life,  and  then  see  him  unfolding  in  its  evolution.  With 
this  the  brink  of  Pantheism  has  been  dared.  While  not 
affirming  the  logical  necessity  of  this,  experience  shows 
its  liability  where  Immanence  is  held  and  Transcendency 
disowned.  Where,  however,  Transcendency  is  held  to, 
this  result  is  obviously  impossible :  however  the  universe 
may  manifest  God,  it  cannot  enfold  him  ;  though  pervading 
it  with  his  spirit,  he  cannot  be  submerged  in  it  as  to  his 
personality  ;  though  the  ultimate  explanation  of  all  worlds, 
all  worlds  do  not  explain  him. 

God  in  all  and  above  all,  source  of  all  and  more  than  all, 
—  such  is  the  larger  aspect  of  Dr.  Martineau's  Theism. 
In  all  as  Will,  working  through  the  multifarious  dynamic 
of  the  world,  soul  of  its  order  and  pledge  of  its  constancy; 
above  all,  like  the  star  in  sweet  and  immediate  influence, 
not  less  here  because  poised  afar ;  like  the  sun  to  whose 
effluent  rays,  poured  down  from  the  deeps  of  heaven,  we 
refer  the  bloom  and  beauty  of  the  world.  In  all,  —  the 
strength  of  the  hills  his  strength,  the  life  of  the  world 
his  life,  the  glory  of  the  heavens  his  glory ;  yet  above 
all,  and  out  of  that  infinite  reserve  a  grace  which  sun  and 
star  may  not  reflect,  but  which  a  free  and  communing 
spirit  may  receive  ;  and  to  such,  an  assurance  of  a  Wis- 
dom that  cannot  err,  a  Justice  that  cannot  fail,  and  a 
Goodness  that  cannot  be  unkind :  a  smile  to  gladden,  a 
refuge  to  which  to  flee,  a  breast  on  which  to  lean. 

With  Pantheism  we  must  now  come  to  closer  quarters. 
Between  it  and  Theism  the  battle  rages.  Of  the  field  of 
contention  let  us  seek  a  broader  survey. 


HIS   CRITICISM    OF   PANTHEISM  4II 

By  reason  of  its  Protean  aspects,  Pantheism  is  difficult 
to  define  save  in  the  broadest  terms.  The  Malebranche 
type  is  far  indeed  from  that  of  Spinoza,  and  neither  will 
do  for  the  Hegelian.  Through  all  its  variables,  however, 
there  is  this  constant :  an  Essence  or  Principle  which  is 
the  source  of  all  things,  is  present  in  all  things,  and  unifies 
all  things.  In  star  and  flower,  in  soul  and  clod,  it  is  iden- 
tical. Mind  and  matter  are  its  manifestations :  the  world 
of  mountain  and  sea  and  city  and  civilization,  the  universe 
of  planet  and  sun  and  star,  are  simply  fleeting  aspects  of 
this  Principle.  They  come  and  go ;  this  comes  not,  goes 
not,  but  eternally  abides. 

"  The  One  remains,  the  many  change  and  pass." 

It  is  real ;  to  them,  save  in  it,  there  is  no  reality.  It  is 
their  ground ;  they  its  phenomena.  Coleridge,  though 
with  mind  intent  upon  a  special  aspect  of  the  doctrine, 
gave  it  a  summary  as  cogent  as  it  is  striking, — 

"  God  —  World  =  God. 
The  World  —  God  ==  0." 

In  God  alone,  that  is,  all  reality ;  in  the  world  apart  from 
God  only  appearance,  which,  he  withdrawn,  would  vanish. 
Of  course  in  a  monism  such  as  this  our  ordinary  dis- 
tinctions are  lost.  Creator  and  creation  are  one.  Cause 
and  effect,  save  in  the  relations  of  phenomena,  are  one. 
God  and  nature  are  one.  God  and  man  are  one.  The 
consciousness  that  asserts  an  Ego  antithetic  to  God  blos- 
soms of  him.  His  nature  is  an  infinite  Deep,  and  I  a 
bubble  of  its  wave.  Further  yet  illustration  may  be 
pressed.  Do  I  pray?  Not  exactly;  the  One  yearns 
towards  itself  through  me.  Do  I  love?  For  convenience 
of  speech  we  may  be  allowed  to  say  so ;  but  speaking 
with  philosophical  severity,  the  One  the  rather  loves  it- 
self in  me.     One  Principle,   one  ReaHty,  —  all  details  of 


412  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

conduct  should  draw  their  meaning  from  this  One ;  a 
conclusion  nowhere  better  stated  than  in  Emerson's 
BraJmia,  — 

"  They  reckon  ill  who  leave  me  out; 
When  me  they  fly,  I  am  the  wings; 
I  am  the  doubter  and  the  doubt, 
And  I  the  hymn  the  Brahmin  sings." 

This  to  many  wears  a  bewildering  look,  but  that  to  cer- 
tain temperaments  it  yields  a  mystic  satisfaction  there  is 
evidence  enough.  In  Hunt's'  volume  on  Pantheism  are 
some  lines  of  great  impressiveness,  drawn  from  a  Persian 
poet,  which  may  be  quoted  in  evidence,  — 

"  I  looked  above  and  in  all  spaces  saw  but  One ; 
I  looked  below  and  in  all  billows  saw  but  One ; 

I  looked  into  its  heart,  it  was  a  sea  of  worlds; 

A  space  of  dreams  all  full,  and  in  the  dreams  but  One. 

Earth,  air  and  fire  and  water  in  Thy  fear  dissolve ; 
Ere  they  ascend  to  Thee,  they  trembling  blend  in  One. 

All  life  in  heaven  and  earth,  all  pulsing  hearts  should  throb 
In  prayer,  lest  they  impede  the  One. 

Nought  but  a  sparkle  of  Thy  glory  is  the  sun ; 
And  yet  Thy  light  and  mine  both  centre  in  the  One. 

Though  at  Thy  feet  the  circling  heaven  is  only  dust, 
Yet  is  it  one,  and  one  my  being  is  with  Thine. 

The  heavens  shall  dust  become,  and  dust  be  heaven  again, 
Yet  shall  the  One  remain  and  one  my  life  with  Thine." 

However,  the  mystics  are  not  a  numerous  clan,  and  in 
their  intellectual  temperament  they  are  somewhat  excep- 
tional. Hence  it  is  that  a  region  that  to  their  view  may 
be  radiant  with  the  flowers  of  Paradise  may  wear  to  other 
eyes  a  Sahara  look.  To  most  minds  the  significance  of 
the  One  must  be  read  off  from  its  predicates.  The  All 
in  All — does  it  live,   docs  it  think,  does   it  will,  does  it 


HIS   CRITICISM    OF   PANTHEISM  413 

love?  Is  the  One  It  or  He?  Is  the  universe  the  result 
of  free  activity  of  the  One?  May  we  refer  its  order  to 
intelligence  of  the  One,  working  on  lines  of  preference? 
Do  its  laws  in  any  sense  express  volitions  of  the  One? 
Within  this  All  in  All  is  the  thought  of  other  entity  per- 
missible? Am  I  really  I?  or  am  I  a  phantom  with  a 
delusive  sense  of  personal  identity  and  foolishly  dreaming 
of  immortality?  Between  me  and  the  One  are  there 
personal  relations?  Has  the  language  of  affection,  obli- 
gation, dependence,  surrender,  as  interpreted  with  refer- 
ence to  the  One,  a  natural  and  unforced  meaning?  These 
are  vital  questions ;  and  though  the  hierophant  of  modern 
Pantheism  bans  them  with  the  dictum  ojnnis  detcrminatio 
est  negatio,  the  insatiable  mind  will  yet  press  them ;  and 
on  their  answer  depends  our  faith,  our  ethics,  and  our 
civilization.  Fortunately  for  us  some  of  these  questions 
can  be  answered  by  implication  as  we  proceed. 

It  may  be  well  to  indicate  the  measure  of  concession  we 
will  make  to  the  claims  of  Pantheism.  We  are  not  panthe- 
ists, we  will  say;  where,  then,  shall  we  fix  a  limit  to  the 
Divine  inclusiveness?  We  will  go  out  into  the  universe  to 
make  reply.  Allow  his  presence  here ;  that  he  dwells  in 
the  planets  and  bends  the  curve  of  their  parabolas,  that  of 
him  the  sunlight  glows,  that  we  trace  him  in  the  complex 
order  of  a  fructifying  and  unfolding  world ;  still  may  not 
the  universe  be  in  some  sense  a  dwelling  which  he  inhabits, 
or  a  datum  on  which  he  acts?  Surely,  you  say,  somewhat 
here  is  other  than  he ;  if  nothing  else,  at  any  rate  the 
matter  of  which  the  sensible  universe  is  composed.  Well, 
what  is  matter?  We  have  all  smiled  at  Dr.  Johnson's 
refutation  of  Berkeley's  doctrine  that  matter  has  no  sub- 
stantive existence :  stamping  his  foot  upon  a  rock,  the 
great  Doctor  exclaimed,  "  /  refute  him  thus."  Yet  it  is 
undeniably  true  that  his  attitude  of  mind  is  a  persistent 
one :  even  in  these  better  instructed  days,  the  non-reality 


414  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

of  matter,  if  the  wisdom  of  philosophy,  is  the  foohshness 
of  common  sense.  Impatient  of  speculation,  you  will  go 
to  science,  you  say,  which  if  it  conduct  through  less  ethe- 
real realms,  will  at  least  give  definite  answers  to  your  ques- 
tions. Go  then  to  science;  take  this  question  to  some 
physicist  and  learn  that  the  answer  is  wholly  beyond  him. 
While,  however,  he  cannot  tell  you  what  matter  is,  he 
may  tell  you  some  strange  things  about  it.  A  block  of 
granite  has  a  very  substantial  look ;  listen  while  he  tells 
you  that,  solid  as  it  seems,  its  ultimate  atoms  are  not  in 
contact,  but  stand  off  from  one  another  as  really  as  the 
planets  of  the  solar  system  do.  Listen  further  while  he 
tells  you  that  these  atoms  are  not  at  rest,  but,  like  motes 
in  a  sunbeam,  are  in  perpetual  dance.  Beyond  these  state- 
ments he  will  give  no  hint  as  to  the  ultimate  nature  of  these 
atoms,  but  only  elaborate  upon  their  behavior;  show,  in 
other  words,  under  given  conditions,  what  force  they  mani- 
fest. If  now,  suspecting  that  the  ultimate  nature  of  force 
may  throw  light  upon  your  question,  you  ask  him  what 
this  is,  in  his  capacity  as  physicist  he  is  dumb.  You  must 
appeal  your  question  from  physics  to  metaphysics  if  you 
will  get  even  the  hint  of  an  answer.  Now  Dr.  Martineau, 
as  we  have  seen,  resolving  all  forces  into  modes  of  Force, 
and  drawing  the  ultimate  nature  of  this  from  the  human 
consciousness,  declares  it  to  be  Will.  Force  must  be  in- 
terpretable  in  terms  of  will,  or  it  can  have  no  meaning  to 
man.  But  Force  is  not  more  clearly  manifest  in  the  move- 
ment of  a  planet  than  of  an  atom  of  hydrogen ;  and  the 
query  will  obtrude  itself  whether  this  atom  is  anything  but 
force,  a  monad  of  force ;  in  other  words,  if  what  we  call 
matter  is  other  than  a  mental  correlate  by  means  of  which 
the  conception  of  Force  is  made  possible.  Grant  that  this 
is  not  a  demonstrable  conclusion,  yet  undoubtedly  it  is  the 
prevailing  conviction  of  those  on  whose  judgment  we  most 
rely.     The  inference  is  clear :  Regarding  Force  as  the  ex- 


HIS   CRITICISM   OF  PANTHEISM  415 

pression  of  Will,  and  Will  as  a  function  of  Mind,  the  seem- 
ingly material  universe  is  really  crystallized  Intelligence. 
This  is  Dr.  Martineau's  conclusion :  "  The  whole  external 
universe,  then  (external,  I  mean,  to  self-conscious  beings), 
we  unreservedly  surrender  to  the  Indwelling  Will,  of  which 
it  is  the  organized  expression."  ^ 

The  outward  universe  we  thus  surrender  to  the  panthe- 
ist. W^ith  him  we  hold  it  to  be  not  real  in  itself,  but  to 
have  its  reality  in  God.  But  how  of  human  personality? 
Shall  we  concede  this  also?  Shall  we  submerge  man  in 
God?  This  brings  us  to  the  battle-line  of  Theism  and  Pan- 
theism. However  the  theist  may  conceive  God  and  man 
related,  he  never  loses  the  latter  in  the  former.  He  is 
ever  ready  to  say,  God  is  in  me,  but  he  cannot  bring  him- 
self to  say.  His  Being  comprehends  me.  As  a  consistent 
theist  I  may  well  maintain  that  God  loves  me,  but  I  cannot 
allow  that  he  loves  himself  in  what  by  courtesy  is  called 
me.  Grant  all  the  infinite  disparity  between  me  and  God, 
still  I  must  insist  that  we  are  two  and  not  one.  I  am  not  a 
wavelet  of  his  deep,  nor  a  ray  of  his  sun.  He  is  not  con- 
scious in  my  consciousness,  nor  is  my  meditation  his  solilo- 
quy, nor  my  prayer  his  rhapsody.  I  am  I,  as  he  is  he ; 
real  as  he  is  real,  person  as  he  is  person.  Self-conscious- 
ness is  a  dyke  against  which  the  pantheistic  flood  beats 
only  to  be  broken.  While  man  holds  fast  to  this,  a  few 
may  find  Pantheism  an  interesting  speculation,  but  it  will 
never  be  a  vital  faith  to  many. 

Here,  though  all  along  we  have  reflected  him,  we  come 
more  distinctly  on  the  trail  of  Dr.  Martineau's  thought.  It 
is  remembered  how  he  reaches  his  doctrine  of  causation : 
through  experience  of  cause  within  himself  he  gains  dis- 
cernment of  a  cause  beyond  himself.  But  cause  within 
himself  is  will ;  will  causality,  therefore,  is  all  the  causality 
he  knows.    Two  wills  he  thus  finds  in  the  universe,  his  own 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  p.  166. 


41 6  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

and  another.  The  other  holds  the  universe  in  sway,  its 
exercise  Hmited  only  at  the  confines  of  human  personality. 
But  why  this  limitation?  Why  not  surrender  this  tri- 
fling demesne,  and  so  have  one  will,  one  cause  in  the  uni- 
verse? The  answer  is,  (i)  The  human  consciousness,  as 
above  illustrated,  puts  forth  unceasing  protest  against  the 
surrender.  Save  as  we  do  violence  to  this,  the  surrender 
cannot  be.  Consciousness  permits  me  ever  to  say  I  am  I, 
but  never,  though  speaking  into  the  ear  of  God,  /  am 
Thou.  (2)  In  merging  the  human  personality  the  Divine 
is  sacrificed  ;  for  the  former  is  the  basis  of  our  belief  in  the 
latter.  If  the  former  is  an  illusion,  the  latter  is  wholly  un- 
tenable. Instead  of  a  personal  God  we  may  then  perhaps 
affirm  an  impersonal  Somewhat,  a  thought,  as  it  were, 
where  no  thinker  is,  a  spring  of  power  to  which  there  is  no 
conscious  direction  of  its  flow;  and  this  impersonality  is 
held  before  us  as  the  more  philosophical  and  the  sublimer 
conception  of  a  God.  This  indeed  is  the  conclusion,  if  not 
the  postulate,  of  all  Pantheisms ;  and  we  are  bound  to  re- 
member also  that  it  is  the  vogue  of  thought  with  many  not 
reckoned  in  the  schools  of  pantheists.  Thus  Herbert 
Spencer,  turned  preacher  for  the  nonce,  and  fervidly  re- 
proving the  "  impieties  of  the  pious,"  speaks  of  a  choice 
between  "  personality  and  something  higher."  ^  This  some- 
thing hieher,  to  be  sure,  he  tells  us  is  inconceivable ;  but 
this  is  not  reason  for  disbelieving  its  existence,  "  rather  the 
reverse."  In  faith  he  comes  little  short  of  the  standard  of 
him  who  said,  "  Credo  quia  impossibile  est!'  The  answer, 
reflecting  Dr.  Martineau  and  reason  alike,  is  that  the  teach- 
ing implies  an  inherent  contradiction.  Higher  than  per- 
sonality is  lower;  beyond  it  is  regression  from  its  height, 
From  the  equator  we  may  travel  northward,  gaining  ever 
higher  and  higher  latitudes ;  but  if  ever  the  pole  is  reached, 
pressing  on  from  thence  will  be  descending  to  lower  lati- 

1  First  Principles,  p.  109. 


HIS   CRITICISM   OF   PANTHEISM  417 

tudes,  not  gaining  higher.  So  when  we  study  gradations 
of  being,  we  may  pass  through  every  zone  from  inorganic 
to  conscious  and  intelligent,  and  thence  climb  through  all 
ranges  of  intelligence,  till  at  thought's  impassable  height 
we  can  only  name  the  infinite.  But  the  infinite  is  an 
infinite  what?  Unconsciousness?  Impersonality?  The 
terms  suggest,  not  thought's  upward  flight,  but  her  down- 
ward plunge.  An  intelligence  and  personality  beyond  my 
conception  my  theistic  attitude  implies.  When  I  speak  of 
an  infinite  God,  this  is  involved  in  my  meaning.  But  a 
non-intelligence  that  is  higher  than  intelligence,  an  imper- 
sonality that  transcends  personality,  discards  an  attribute 
ideally  supreme  with  stipulation  that  a  nature  without  it 
shall  vault  up  to  heights  transcending  the  ideal.  Such  is 
our  conclusion  when  we  contemplate  in  itself  this  imper- 
sonal First  Principle.  When  we  contemplate  it  in  relation 
with  man,  we  are  even  more  impressed  with  its  failure  to 
answer  to  our  conception  of  what  should  be  highest.  The 
personal  God  of  Theism,  however  the  conception  of  him 
may  suggest  difficulties,  may  at  any  rate  take  cognizance 
of  our  needs  and  be  a  very  present  help  in  time  of  trouble; 
this  impersonal  Somewhat,  however  it  may  unify  a  cosmos, 
can  decree  no  justice,  is  capable  of  no  love,  can  extend  no 
help,  can  hear  no  prayer.  (3)  The  consequence  to  man 
of  a  full  acceptance  of  this  doctrine  would  be  a  surrender 
of  freedom  and  moral  accountability;  the  deprivation, 
too,  of  any  proper  object  of  reverence  and  praise.  Is  it 
objected  that  we  should  judge  a  doctrine  by  its  inherent 
strength  and  not  by  its  consequences?  The  answer  is  that 
the  inherent  strength  of  a  doctrine  is  often  determined  by 
its  consequences,  by  the  consideration  whether  it  is  true  to 
the  nature  of  man  and  the  great  needs  of  life;  and  there  is 
no  juster  ground  for  the  repudiation  of  a  doctrine  than  the 
fact  that  from  its  contact  the  religious  instincts  are  clouded 
or  the  moral  consciousness  bewildered.     Some  may  chal- 

27 


41 8  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

lenge  this  judgment  as  applied  to  Pantheism  by  reference 
to  the  saintly  pantheists  whom  previous  pages  have  noticed. 
Grant  all  that  may  be  claimed  for  them,  it  is  yet  simply 
true  that  in  a  wide  survey  Pantheism  has  rarely  justified  it- 
self as  in  the  best  sense  friendly  either  to  piety  or  to 
morals. 

The  question,  Why  withhold  the  demesne  of  human  per- 
sonality from  the  rule  of  the  Divine  Will?  may  in  reverse 
form  be  asked  respecting  the  Divine  Will  itself:  Why  does 
it  arrest  itself  at  the  demesne  of  human  personality?  In  an- 
swer, the  questioner  may  be  shown  that  did  the  Higher  Will 
usurp  the  province  now  held  by  the  human,  knowledge  of 
itself  would  be  impossible.  In  that  unity  there  could  be 
no  apprehension.  Self  and  other  than  self  must  stand 
over  against  each  other,  that  either  may  be  known.  Make 
real  the  identity  of  which  Pantheism  tells,  and  the  result 
would  be  a  blank  to  human  consciousness.  This  consider- 
ation is  developed  by  Dr.  Martineau  in  a  passage  which 
we  will  quote  in  full :  "  The  very  same  principle  which 
establishes  a  Unity  of  all  external  causality  makes  it  anti- 
thetic to  the  internal,  and  establishes  a  Duality  between 
our  own  and  that  which  is  other  than  ours :  so  that,  were 
not  our  personal  power  known  to  us  as  one,  the  cosmical 
power  would  not  be  guaranteed  to  us  as  the  other.  Here, 
therefore,  at  the  boundary  of  the  proper  Ego,  the  absorb- 
ing claim  of  the  supreme  will  arrests  itself,  and  recognizes 
a  ground  on  which  it  does  not  mean  to  step.  Did  it  still 
press  on  and  annex  this  field  also,  it  would  simply  abolish 
the  very  base  of  its  own  recognizable  existence,  and,  in 
making  itself  all  in  all,  would  vanish  totally  from  view. 
It  is  precisely  by  not  being  unitary  that  causation  is  acces- 
sible to  thought  at  all ;  and  if  our  own  will  does  not  ex- 
ercise it,  we  are  excluded  from  even  the  search  for  it 
elsewhere.  By  self  we  mean  the  will  internal :  by  *  God,' 
we  mean  the  will  external :  by  cause  we  mean  either :  and 


HIS   CRITICISM   OF   PANTHEISM  419 

as  the  two  former  come  into  our  knowledge  as  terms  of 
a  relation  under  the  category  of  the  latter,  it  is  impossible 
for  either  extreme  to  lapse  into  the  other.  It  would  be  a 
parricidal  doctrine  of  causality  that  should  thus  lay  violent 
hands  on  the  conditions  of  its  own  existence."  ^  Indeed 
it  would  seem  such;  and  when  we  shift  the  argument 
about  and  reason  from  the  necessary  self-assertion  of  the 
nature,  the  conclusion  is  even  more  emphatic.  The  unity 
we  maintain  we  confute  in  that  we  maintain  it.  The  saint 
at  the  gate  of  Paradise  who,  in  answer  to  the  challenge 
from  within,  had  been  chastened  to  the  reply,  "  It  is  Thou, 
dear  Lord,"  illustrated  by  his  self-abnegation  the  selfhood 
he  verbally  disowned.  Do  I  say,  I  am  a  pantheist?  Then, 
ipso  facto,  I  deny  Pantheism ;  for  in  the  very  assertion  of 
the  Ego  I  imply  all  else  as  objective  to  me.  Here,  quot- 
ing Dr.  Martineau  again,  "  we  touch  the  ultimate  and  irre- 
movable ground  of  all  certainty ;  whence  alone  we  look 
forth  and  discover  either  the  irav  or  the  6e6<i'.  and  to 
negative  this  position  on  behalf  of  what  it  shows  us  would 
be  like  the  fanaticism  of  a  fire-worshipper  who  should  put 
out  his  eyes  to  glorify  the  light."  ^ 

But  is  there  not  implied  here  an  abridgment  of  the 
Divine  infinitude?  If  man  exercises  a  causal  preroga- 
tive, then  there  seems  to  be  a  realm  from  which  the 
Divine  Agency  is  excluded.  This  consideration  has  drawn 
a  good  deal  of  attention,  and  it  has  been  urged  alike  by 
pantheists,  from  their  jealousy  for  the  Divine  Immanence, 
and  by  necessarians,  who  would  discredit  human  freedom. 
If  there  is  with  man  a  causal  initiative,  the  Divine  Will 
does  not  rule  within  its  domain;  and  though  it  may  bend 
the  curves  of  history,  the  details  of  the  record  must  be  left 
to  man's  free  origination.  The  theistic  doctrine  sets  a 
limit  to  the  Divine  Power,  in  the  face  of  which  who  can 
longer  maintain  that  it  is  infinite? 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  pp.  166-167.  ^  Ihid.  p.  167. 


420  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

Theists  have  recognized  this  difficulty,  and  have  wrestled 
with  it  often  with  deep  longing  for  clearer  light.  But 
before  we  seek  the  significance  of  the  theist's  reservation 
from  the  Divine  Power,  let  us  see  if  the  pantheist  really 
maintains  its  infinity.  This  impersonal  First  Principle  — 
is  the  exercise  of  all  power  allowed  it?  On  the  contrary, 
power  of  choice,  "preferential  power"  as  Dr.  Martineau 
would  say,  pantheism  always  denies.  Its  God  can  do 
no  other  than  he  does ;  all  in  the  fields  of  space  and  time 
is  an  evolution  of  him,  and  follows  from  a  necessity  of  his 
nature.  This  preferential  power  the  theist  maintains  ;  and 
draws  light  from  the  preference  of  God  in  dealing  with  this 
phase  of  the  theistic  problem.  Here  once  more  we  will 
turn  to  Dr.  Martineau's  page :  "  Is  there  any  reconcilia- 
tion of  these  contradictory  aspects  of  personality?  There 
is  none,  if  you  assume  that  infinite  Will  can  never  abstain 
from  appropriating  all  its  causality,  or  divest  itself  of  a 
portion,  in  order  to  fit  up  another  and  resembling  nature. 
But  surely  one  who  assumes  this  has  already  committed 
the  fault  which  he  charges,  and  discovered  something 
to  which  his  '  rigorous  infinitude  '  is  incompetent !  If 
we  drop  this  assumption,  then  our  allowance  of  independ- 
ence is  itself  the  result  of  our  dependence :  it  is  conceded 
to  us  by  the  author  of  our  being,  and,  though  entrusted  for 
awhile  with  a  certain  free  play  of  causality,  is  referable  in 
the  ultimate  resort  to  the  Supreme  cause :  it  is  included 
in  what  he  Jias  caiised,  though  excepted  from  what  he  is 
causing.  It  takes  therefore  nothing  from  his  infinitude, 
but  what  he  himself  renounces ;  and  what  is  thus  relin- 
quished is  potentially  retained.  The  self-abnegation  of 
infinity  is  but  a  form  of  self-assertion,  and  the  only  form 
in  which  it  can  reveal  itself.  Whether  by  setting  up  other 
minds  with  a  range  of  command  over  alternatives,  or  by 
instituting  a  universe  under  law  without  alternative,  the  In- 
finite Cause  foregoes  something  of  his  absolute  freedom;  in 


HIS   CRITICISM   OF  PANTHEISM  42 1 

the  one  case  admitting  partners  of  his  hberty ;  in  the  other, 
establishing  for  himself  a  sphere  of  necessity :  and  in  the 
latter  case,  the  more  comprehensive  the  sphere,  the  vaster 
is  the  renunciation :  and  if  it  extends  to  the  All,  so  as  to 
leave  no  margin  of  transcendency,  the  limitation  reaches  its 
maximum,  no  possibility  but  one  being  anywhere  left  open. 
If  therefore  there  be  any  force  in  this  objection,  the 
Pantheist  who  brings  it  is  himself  exposed  to  it  in  a 
superlative  degree.  What  greater  contradiction  can  there 
be  than  to  say,  in  one  and  the  same  breath,  that  a  being 
is  infinite  and  omnipotent,  yet  cannot  put  forth  preferen- 
tial power?  And  if  we  are  jealous  of  his  infinitude,  which 
shall  we  be  more  afraid  to  grant,  —  that  he  lends  to  a 
derivative  being  a  little  preferential  power;  or  that  he 
is  forever  incapable  of  exercising  it  himself?  "  ^ 

But  the  Causal  Will  immanent  in  the  universe,  —  is  he 
not  man's  cause  too  ?  We  were  not  always  here,  —  was 
not  our  origin  from  him?  Is  he  not  implicated  with  our 
lives,  —  our  heart-throbs  and  our  soul-throbs,  is  he  aloof 
from  them?  He  is  our  cause  indeed.  A  pervasive  pres- 
ence within  us,  too,  it  is  our  joy  to  think  him ;  and  with 
just  discrimination  to  draw 

"  the  mystic  line, 
Severing  rightly  his  from  thine, 
Which  is  human,  which  divine," 

we  may  confess  most  difficult.  But  while  we  claim  him  as 
cause  we  cannot  deny  that  we  are  causes ;  and  that  while 
"  there  is  one  Will  in  nature  there  are  two  that  meet  in  man." 

The  suggestion  that  lurks  here  seems  at  first  rather 
startling:  my  will  meeting  his  will;  my  impotence  hold- 
ing a  province  against  his  omnipotence  !  Rather  should 
we  say,  his  will  granting  autonomy  to  mine ;  for  some 
wise  purpose  appointing  to  me  a  principality  within  his 
universal  kingdom. 

What  that  purpose  is   should  be  seen  in  the  different 

^  Shidy  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  pp.  182-183. 


422  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

nature,  and  so  the  entirely  other  relation  with  the  Divine 
which  that  autonomy  makes  possible.  Did  the  Divine 
Will  occupy  the  field  of  our  will,  we  should  conform  to  it 
as  winds  and  seas  and  stars  now  do,  but  we  could  not 
proffer  it  our  surrender.  We  should  involuntarily  yield  to 
it,  but  we  should  not  voluntarily  obey  it.  Resignation,  as- 
piration, free  affection,  the  crowning  graces  of  the  human, 
by  that  ever  determining  Divine  Will  would  be  made 
impossible.  We  should  be  another  species  of  automata, 
exercising  no  causality,  and  so  knowing  none.  The  recog- 
nition of  the  Divine  Will  would  be  made  impossible  by  its 
constancy  and  pervasiveness.  The  feeling  is  irresistibly 
borne  in  upon  us  that  in  calling  man  into  existence  God 
intended  that  there  should  be  one  being  in  the  universe 
that  might  render  him  a  free  obedience ;  and  that  to  this 
end  he  placed  him  over  against  himself  outside  the  scope 
of  his  immanent  volition.  Is  it  objected  that  in  this  view 
God  favors  the  lower  ranges  of  being  with  his  immediate 
guidance,  but  takes  his  Holy  Presence  from  the  higher? 
gives  to  planets  no  choice  but  to  obey  him,  and  leaves 
man  to  the  possibility  of  sin?  That  possibility  is  essential 
to  man's  distinguishing  glory.  Because  the  Higher  Will 
does  not  rule  through  our  struggle  a  victor's  crown  may 
be  won  by  us.  Besides,  as  Dr.  Martineau  urges,  this  ab- 
sence is  in  only  one  aspect,  and  to  the  end  that,  in  another, 
he  may  bestow  his  Presence.  Absent  is  he  as  a  con- 
straint, but  present  as  a  personal  sympathy  and  affection. 
While  through  his  Immanence  he  deals  with  all  else, 
from  the  sphere  of  his  Transcendence  he  bends  to  man. 
It  is  our  aspirations  that  go  upward,  our  prayers  that  we 
pray ;  it  is  we  ourselves  that  are  tempted  and  strive  for  the 
higher  joy.  Yet  in  all  our  aspiring  and  wrestling  we  are 
not  apart  from  him.  Withdrawn  from  us  as  a  law,  he 
meets  us  as  a  friend  to  reinforce  our  courage,  to  comfort 
our  griefs,  and  to  woo  us  upward. 


CHAPTER   V 

FREEDOM   AND   IMMORTALITY 

I.  Freedom 

There  are  many  arguments  against  Free  Will;  for  it 
there  is  one.  With  Calvin  and  Edwards  we  may  main- 
tain its  incompatibility  with  Divine  Decrees ;  with  Hart- 
ley and  Priestley  we  may  surrender  it  before  the  Law  of 
Association ;  with  Comte  and  the  positivists  we  may  find 
no  place  for  it  in  the  sequences  of  phenomenal  causation; 
with  Spinoza  and  the  pantheists  we  may  conceive  man 
but  a  mode  of  a  universal  Substance,  and  what  he  mis- 
calls his  freedom  to  be  ruled  by  its  necessity.  All  these 
doctrines  may  be  so  presented  as  to  make  the  affirmation 
of  Free  Will  look  quite  foolish.  On  the  other  hand  the 
apostle  of  freedom  has  one  argument  which  he  deems 
conclusive,  and  which  three  words  can  state :  Conscious- 
7iess  declares  it.  Here  in  consciousness,  where  we  gain 
a  first-hand  acquaintance  with  the  will,  and  receive  its 
testimony  respecting  itself,  its  freedom  is  unmistakably 
avouched  to  us.  "  If  bound,"  it  says,  "  I  know  nothing 
of  the  gyves."  That  we  exercise  a  preferential  part, 
determine  upon  this  as  against  that,  in  the  presence  of 
alternatives  choose,  rather  than  are  constrained  to,  one  of 
them,  accepting  the  testimony  of  consciousness,  we  can 
but  say  we  know.  Accordingly,  while  the  advocate  of 
Free  Will  contents  himself  with  maintaining  the  necessary 
trustworthiness  of  consciousness,  and  with  showing  how  the 
experiences  of  life  may  be  harmonized  with  its  oracle,  the 


424  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

determinist  puts  forth  the  arguments  of  his  school,  and 
then  undertakes  to  discredit  consciousness.  Discrediting 
consciousness,  however,  is  serious  business;  for,  being  our 
witness  to  many  things  besides  freedom,  on  the  principle, 
falsus  in  wio,  falsiis  in  omnibus,  doubting  its  testimony 
as  to  freedom  involves  us  in  a  paralyzing  scepticism. 
Further,  it  is  perfectly  plain  that  the  doctrine  of  Neces- 
sity, however  cogently  argued,  cannot,  since  it  is  out  of 
accord  with  consciousness,  carry  the  full  force  of  a  prac- 
tical conviction.  In  the  toil,  study,  play  of  life,  in  its 
right  doing  and  its  wrong  doing,  we  have  the  certitude 
that  we  act,  not  as  we  must,  but  as  we  will ;  and  by  no 
inference  from  any  theory  of  the  universe  can  the  sig- 
nificance of  this  certitude  be  destroyed. 

The  controversy  being  thus  one  of  theory  versus  con- 
sciousness, there  pertains  to  it  this  further  aspect:  The 
oracles  of  consciousness  are  to  be  asserted  rather  than 
argued ;  the  theories  by  which  we  will  confute  them  are 
to  be  argued  rather  than  asserted.  The  former  are  self- 
evident  until  discredited ;  the  latter,  in  that  they  are 
arrayed  against  consciousness,  are  discredited  until  proven 
to  the  overthrow  of  consciousness.  Were  I,  giving  ac- 
count of  myself,  to  say  /  ant  well,  and  another  to  contra- 
dict me.  No,  you  are  not  well,  I  might  think  him  trifling 
with  me ;  or,  if  a  physician,  I  might  suspect  him  to  see  in 
my  eyes,  or  in  my  breathing,  or  in  the  expression  of  my 
countenance,  some  incipient  ill.  Beyond  the  general 
assertion,  however,  that  I  feel  well,  I  obviously  could  not 
go;  and  it  would  be  for  him  to  show  the  latent  disease 
my  feelings  up  to  date  have  not  allowed  me  to  suspect. 
Were  one  calling  himself  a  prophet  to  appear,  proclaiming 
a  universal  bad  health,  and  teaching  that  the  general  feel- 
ing of  good  health  is  an  illusion,  very  likely  he  would 
win  converts;  indeed,  the  Invalidinarians  might  speedily 
become  a  numerous  sect  among  us.     Probably,  however, 


FREEDOM   AND   IMMORTALITY  425 

there  would  be  doubting  ones  who  would  query  how  the 
conditions  and  feeling  peculiar  to  good  health  can  coexist 
with  an  ever-present  and  all-pervading  invalidism ;  and 
who  would  be  so  unreasonable  as  not  to  call  the  doctor 
till  their  consciousness  of  health  had  been  shown  to  be 
delusive?  So  where  the  universal  consciousness  of  free- 
dom is  challenged,  the  burden  of  proof,  or  rather  of  dis- 
proof, is  on  the  determinist  side.  It  is  in  full  recognition 
of  this  feature  of  the  discussion  that  Dr.  Martineau  bears 
his  part  in  it.  The  consciousness  that  affirms  freedom  he 
holds  should  be  trusted  until  its  veracity  has  been  success- 
fully impugned ;  which  he  has  no  suspicion  that  it  ever 
has  been,  and  clearly  doubts  if  it  ever  can  be.  Accord- 
ingly, in  his  wonderful  discussion  of  this  problem  he 
assumes  Free  Will,  and  devotes  his  great  thought  and 
learning  to  shattering  antagonistic  doctrines.  If  any  one 
thinks  he  has  an  unanswered  argument  against  Free  Will, 
if  he  will  turn  to  this  discussion  ^  he  may  probably  find 
himself  mistaken.  Not  that  Dr.  Martineau's  attitude  is 
wholly  defensive :  he  has  made  many  a  sally  into  the  en- 
emy's camp  with  no  end  of  destruction  of  the  machinery  of 
argumentative  war ;  but  his  general  method  is  to  expose 
the  weakness  of  necessarian  doctrines  rather  than  to  but- 
tress the  alternative  one.  He  holds  that  until  the  latter 
is  discredited,  it  must  stand ;  that  no  mere  plausibility 
of  theory  can  be  allowed  to  prevail  against  a  clearly 
authenticated  fact  of  consciousness. 

But  the  question  is  asked,  What  signifies  the  endless 
controversy  over  this  insoluble  problem?  So  far  as  we 
can  see,  like  wisdom  is  found  on  either  side;  and  whether 
with  freedom  or  necessity,  virtue  and  depravity  seem  to 
prosper.  If  we  were  to  judge  its  significance  thus,  by  the 
personal  and  average  worth  of  those  who  take  sides  upon 
it,  we  might  indeed  be  tempted  to  call  truce  to  the  strife; 

^  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  pp.  1S4  seq. 


426  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

though  still  it  would  be  gravely  doubted  whether  charac- 
ter could  indefinitely  prosper  on  a  doctrine  that  gives  the 
lie  to  the  clearest  dictum  of  the  interior  nature.  The 
bearings  of  the  discussion,  however,  run  wide  of  the  ques- 
tion of  personal  character:  the  outlook  upon  the  universe, 
the  mental  construction  which  it  yields  to  libertarian  and 
necessarian,  is  entirely  different.  Grant  to  each  the  like 
certificate  of  good  morals,  we  must  yet  discriminate  be- 
tween the  worlds  they  live  in.  While  to  the  latter  freedom 
is  a  conclusion  he  cannot  draw  out  of  his  postulates,  to 
the  former  it  is  a  datum  which  his  postulates  imply. 
While  the  one  subordinates  the  inner  life  to  a  rule  of 
necessity  which  he  finds  abroad,  the  other  carries  abroad 
a  freedom  found  at  home  and  interprets  the  world  in  its 
light.  Of  the  preceding  pages,  there  are  few  indeed 
that  would  not  need  to  be  rewritten  to  make  them  the 
consistent  utterance  of  a  necessarian.  Let  alone  his 
Ethics,  of  which  freedom  is  a  constitutive  principle,  he 
must  be  a  superficial  reader  who  does  not  see  that 
Dr.  Martineau's  firm  conviction  of  freedom  signifies 
greatly  even  in  the  domain  of  Critical  Theology.  It  is 
not  too  much  to  say,  indeed  it  is  clearly  obvious,  that 
prior  to  his  conversion  from  the  determinism  which  he 
early  held,  he  could  not  have  written  the  Scat  of  Authority 
in  Religion,  could  all  the  learned  data  have  been  given 
him.  To  the  apostle  of  freedom  the  Bible  cannot  yield 
the  same  meaning  as  to  the  apostle  of  necessity,  and 
Christ  must  be  a  different  teacher.  The  great  themes  of 
Christian  doctrine,  in  any  thorough  treatment  of  them, 
will  surely  reflect  the  thinker's  attitude  on  this  vexed 
problem.  When  we  set  aside  the  testimony  of  conscious- 
ness, man  becomes  another  being,  and  his  record  has 
another  meaning.  In  wrestling  with  this  problem,  there- 
fore, the  theologian  is  settling  with  a  consideration,  and 
that  a  very  important  one,  by  which  his  judgments  must 


FREEDOM   AND   IMMORTALITY  427 

be  influenced.  So  when  we  come  to  the  vast  considera- 
tions of  the  Philosophy  of  ReHgion,  the  significance  of  our 
attitude  on  this  problem  can  hardly  be  exaggerated.  Few 
are  the  pages  of  Dr.  Martineau's  great  Study  of  Religion 
that  would  not  need  to  be  transformed  to  make  them 
even  tolerable  in  the  eyes  of  a  necessarian ;  and  with  the 
complete  triumph  of  necessarian  doctrine,  his  type  of  The- 
ism, which  is  that  of  Paul  and  of  Jesus,  should  disappear. 
In  relation  to  the  supreme  question  of  philosophy  note 
its  bearing.  In  his  study  of  Causation  we  have  seen  that, 
like  Schopenhauer,  Dr.  Martineau  comes  to  the  concep- 
tion of  Will  as  the  ultimate  source  of  the  universe.  His 
Will,  however,  is  not,  like  Schopenhauer's,  a  blind  and 
restless  impulse,  but  the  executive  function  of  an  Intelli- 
gence. In  other  words,  it  is  not  only  Will,  but  free  Will. 
But  it  is  only  through  will  in  man  that  we  arrive  at  the 
conception  of  Will  beyond  him;  and  if  we  must  conclude 
that  man's  will,  though  coalescing  with  an  intelligent 
principle,  is  necessitated  and  not  free,  how  shall  we  escape 
the  same  conclusion  respecting  the  Divine  Will?  If  intel- 
ligence carries  freedom  in  heaven,  then  on  earth ;  if  it  is 
under  necessity  on  earth,  then,  for  aught  we  can  reason 
to  the  contrary,  so  also  in  heaven.  God  wills  not  as  he 
will,  but  as  he  must;  and  rules  by  appointments  he 
cannot  help  but  make.  The  logic  of  necessity,  therefore, 
by  this  path  leads  to  Fatalism;  and  Dr.  Martineau,  in 
vindicating  freedom,  fights  a  battle  for  the  supreme  doc- 
trine of  religious  faith.  On  this  point  Dr.  Martineau 
should  himself  be  heard.  Speaking  of  a  phase  of  the 
necessarian  argument,  he  says:  "If  it  holds  of  mind  as 
well  as  matter,  and  is  co-extensive  with  causality  itself,  it 
applies  no  less  to  God  than  to  us ;  and  all  that  has  begun 
to  be  in  his  eternal  life,  the  thoughts  and  acts  that  have 
written  themselves  out  in  the  history  of  the  universe,  have 
been   without   alternative,  the   sole  possibility  of  things. 


428  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

He  could  neither  have  withheld  creation,  nor  created  any- 
thing else.  If  in  its  immensity  his  nature  is  exempt  from 
external  constraint,  it  is  because  it  swallows  up  and 
embraces  all  necessity  within  itself:  he  does  not  prefer, 
he  does  not  choose,  he  does  not  divide  and  judge;  he 
thinks  what  must  be  thought,  he  does  what  must  be  done, 
and  perceives  neither  better  nor  worse  that  might  be.  Pes- 
simism and  optimism  are  alike  a  vain  jangle:  the  world 
had  to  be  what  it  is,  and  stands  in  no  degrees  of  compari- 
son:  there  is  no  margin  of  the  possible  beyond  the  actual: 
they  are  identical.  I  never  like  to  press  the  consequences 
of  a  doctrine  from  which  I  dissent,  knowing  well  the  happy 
ingenuity  with  which  its  dangerous  tendencies  are  evaded 
by  men's  better  affections :  but,  without  some  regard  to 
them,  it  cannot  be  estimated  as  a  logical  whole:  and  if 
here  a  conclusion  is  legitimately  drawn  from  the  necessa- 
rian premises  which  he  does  not  desire  to  admit,  it  is  but 
a  fair  invitation  to  him  to  carry  a  fresh  scrutiny  to  his  first 
principles.  He  usually  resents  the  imputation  o'i  fatalism: 
and  with  some  reason,  so  long  as  the  question  is  detained 
on  the  field  of  human  life:  for  the  fatalist  imatrines  it  to 
make  no  difference  whether  he  bestirs  himself  or  not : 
the  necessarian,  that  it  is  just  this  that  does  make  the 
difference,  only  that  with  the  end  the  means  also  are  no 
less  ordained,  and  that  God  will  not  act  for  him  but 
throiigJi  him.  But  when  the  doctrine  is  carried  into  the 
Divine  nature,  does  it  leave  anything  there  that  is  dis- 
tinguishable from  Fate?  How  can  we  call  that  a  Mind, 
from  which  the  alternatives,  the  problems,  the  compari- 
sons, of  thought  are  absent?  and  how,  that  a  character 
which  has  no  choice,  and  cannot  help  being  and  doing 
precisely  what  it  is  and  does?  Goodness  cannot  exist 
except  under  possibility  of  evil,  or  love  except  under 
conditions  of  preference,  or  perfection  except  as  the 
superlative  and  crown  of  a  better  and  a  worse  :  and  from 


FREEDOM   AND    IMMORTALITY  429 

an    infinitude    embracing    nothing   but    necessities    such 
predicates  must  be  withheld."  ^ 

There  is  another  theme  in  the  consideration  of  which 
our  attitude  on  the  problem  of  the  will  has  great  signifi- 
cance. We  recall  the  fine  saying  of  Novalis :  "  Philoso- 
phy can  bake  no  bread ;  but  she  can  procure  for  us  God, 
Freedom,  and  Immortality."  It  may  not  have  occurred 
to  all  that  the  middle  conception  here  is  a  key  to  the 
other  two.  We  have  seen  how  freedom  is  related  to  the 
theistic  doctrine,  but  how  to  immortality?  Undoubtedly 
there  is  a  type  of  determinism  with  which  the  belief  in 
immortality  is  not  untenable,  as,  for  instance,  that  of 
Edwards  and  the  earlier  Calvinists,  who  held  the  will 
of  the  natural  man  to  be  enslaved  by  sin,  though  the  func- 
tion of  a  nature  constitutionally  immortal.  When  we 
affirm,  however,  a  constitutional  necessity,  we  embrace 
a  philosophy  with  which  belief  in  immortality  does  not 
easily  coalesce.  For  an  immortal  nature,  as  it  is  easy  to 
see,  must  be  an  entity,  not  an  appearance  merely ;  that  is 
to  say,  a  self-subsistent  nature.  A  necessitated  nature, 
on  the  contrary,  must  be  a  dependent  one :  it  has  its 
reality  in  another  nature  of  which  it  is  a  manifestation. 
Try  the  issue  with  reference  to  modern  Naturalism,  which, 
whether  on  its  more  strictly  Positive  or  on  its  Evolution- 
ary side,  has  shown  freedom  little  favor.  Is  man  but  a 
flower  of  nature?  The  comfortless  but  unanswerable 
answer  is.  No  fiower  is  immortal.  Does  he  come  in  any 
sense  through  the  determination  of  Nature's  law,  her  latest 
and  fairest  phenomenon?  We  can  only  repeat  the  last 
conclusion  and  say,  There  is  no  immortal  phenomenon. 
What  comes  by  law,  by  law  may  go;  that  which  is  in- 
tegrated may  be  resolved.  Unless  there  be  that  in  man 
which  is  not  the  product  of  nature  and  which  law  does 
not  rule,  it  is  useless  to  talk  of  immortality.     Or  try  the 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  pp.  232-233. 


430  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

issue  with  reference  to  Pantheism.  Though  the  forms  of 
this  are  Protean,  there  is  one  cardinal  conception  from 
which  it  cannot  depart :  all  reality  is  in  God,  and  the 
universe  and  man  are  submerged  in  him.  Of  course  the 
freedom  which  would  be  an  invincible  dyke  against  this 
submergence  is  not  here ;  for  there  is  no  proper  personal- 
ity, only  a  mode  of  the  One  Essence. 

Thus,  one  defending  the  doctrine  of  freedom  may  well 
have  in  view  a  basal  principle  which  must  rule  his  criticism 
of  theology,  his  judgments  of  history,  his  construction  of 
ethical  theory,  his  religious  philosophy,  his  view  of  human 
destiny;  and  all  depends  on  whether  the  simple  dictum 
within  us  shall  be  received  or  no.  Though  there  are 
many  incidental  arguments  in  favor  of  freedom,  and 
though  the  consequences  to  which  we  argue  on  determin- 
ist  lines  in  their  ugly  aspects  remonstrate  against  deter- 
minism, we  come  for  ultimate  settlement  to  consciousness 
at  last. 


II.   Immortality 

Dr.  Martineau  settles  with  the  problem  of  freedom  be- 
fore he  approaches  that  of  immortality.  He  carries,  how- 
ever, the  result  of  that  settlement  over  to  the  consideration 
of  the  latter  problem:  it  is  a  free  nature  of  which  he 
maintains  the  immortality.  With  his  usual  thoroughness, 
however,  he  reviews  the  salient  doctrines  by  which  in 
these  latter  days  immortality  is  often  held  to  be  dis- 
credited: in  a  discussion  of  the  "  physiological  aspects" 
of  death  he  shows  the  utter  irrelevancy  of  the  objections 
of  modern  Naturalism ;  and  in  a  like  discussion  of  the 
•'  metaphysical  aspect"  of  death  he  shows  against  Schleier- 
machcr  and  his  school  how  groundless  is  the  pantheistic 
doctrine  of  absorption.  He  then  turns  upon  the  inner 
nature  itself,  and   asks  if  the  vaticinations  of  the  intellect 


FREEDOM   AND   IMMORTALITY  43 1 

and  conscience  favor  belief  in  immortality;  and  here  we 
will  take  up  his  argument. 

I.  The  Intellect.  In  these  days  when  Natural  His- 
tory is  so  assertive  an  interest,  the  lower  animal,  long 
neglected,  is  often  brought  forward  to  challenge  man's 
claim  to  the  exclusive  possession  of  the  faculties  com- 
monly regarded  as  peculiarly  human.  Man  reasons ;  but 
the  horse  is  detected  in  conduct  so  suggestive  of  reason 
that  it  seems  almost  an  intellectual  perversity  not  to  allow 
it  to  him; — incipient  reason,  indeed,  but  reason.  The 
fleeing  criminal  is  hardly  more  fertile  in  devices  to  escape 
the  constable  than  the  fox  or  deer  to  outwit  the  hunter; 
shrewd  observers  have  little  doubt  of  the  cogitations  of 
the  elephant ;  as  an  example  of  maternal  affection,  see  the 
hen  gathering  her  chickens  under  her  wings;  while  one 
contemplating  the  special  friend  and  companion  of  man, 
his  steadfastness  and  fidelity,  may  often  be  willing  to  make 
his  own  the  saying  of  Dio  Lewis :  "  The  best  part  of  man 
is  the  dog  that  is  in  him."  Thus,  in  observing  the  feat- 
ures in  which  the  conduct  of  brute  natures  resembles  our 
own,  very  interesting  parallelisms  may  be  made  out,  quite 
satisfying  to  those  who,  from  apparent  similarity  of  nature, 
are  disposed  to  give  both  a  like  place  in  their  philosophy; 
and  so  implicate  both  in  the  same  destiny. 

These  parallelisms  we  will  pause  neither  to  discredit 
nor  to  explain.  Let  them  be  admitted  to  whatever  extent 
there  may  be  warrant  for  admitting  them ;  still  it  may  be 
maintained  that  between  brute  and  man  there  is  a  differ- 
ence that  is  fundamental  and  not  to  be  ignored.  This 
difference,  following  Dr.  Martineau,  we  may  dare  to  state 
thus :  While  what  we  call  the  inward  life  of  the  animal  is 
for  the  outward  life,  with  man  the  relation  is  the  reverse : 
the  outward  life  is  for  the  inward.  With  the  former  the 
physical  life  is  the  all-predominant  consideration;  with  the 
latter  the  psychical  and  moral.     To  the  animal  are  the  pro- 


432  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

pensions  through  which  it  seeks  food  and  propagates  its 
kind,  the  passions  that  resist  injury  and  flee  from  danger, 
the  brief  period  of  maternal  affection,  all  for  the  individ- 
ual's safety  and  the  support  and  the  perpetuation  of  the 
race.  When  we  turn,  too,  to  the  more  curious  instincts, 
shown  in  the  civic  habits  of  the  ant  and  the  bee,  the 
architecture  of  the  bird  and  the  beaver,  the  web-weaving 
of  the  caterpillar  and  the  spider,  we  find  it  the  same,  the 
wisdom  of  the  universe  working  through  them  and  direct- 
ing them  to  the  conditions  of  their  existence;  just  as  it 
works  through  the  plant,  directing  its  root  to  shoot  down- 
ward and  its  stock  to  shoot  upward,  and  its  leaves  to 
spread  out  into  the  air.  So  always  whatever  light  is  given 
to  the  animal  it  is  for  the  guidance  of  its  purely  animal 
existence.  To  adopt  with  man,  however,  the  like  order  of 
preference  we  feel  to  be  a  departure  from  the  rule  ap- 
pointed to  him,  and  thus  unnatural  and  dishonoring. 
While  we  may  adopt  as  our  working  maxim,  mens  sana  in 
corpore  sano,  we  forgive  and  even  applaud  the  disregard  of 
it  which  fidelity  to  the  higher  claims  of  the  higher  nature 
may  ask  of  us.  The  true  relation  of  the  physical  is  that 
of  subordination  to  the  spiritual ;  it  is  designed  to  be  the 
instrument  of  its  progress,  the  servant  of  its  work.  Robert 
Browning  states  our  thesis  well:  — 


'S3 


"  To  man  propose  this  test  — 
Thy  body  at  its  best, 
How  far  can  it  project  thy  soul  on  its  lone  way  ?  " 

The  recognition  of  this  relation  is  implied  in  our  character- 
istic judgments.  While  we  look  very  tolerantly  on  the 
rigors  through  which  the  higher  faculties  are  honored,  the 
enfceblement  of  the  intellect  in  any  degree  through  phys- 
ical excess  is  revolting  in  our  eyes.  The  truth  is  more 
clearly  seen  in  extreme  illustrations.  We  might  not  be 
willing   to  commend    the    austerities  of  St.  Jerome;   but 


FREEDOM   AND   IMMORTALITY  433 

they  are  beautiful  to  contemplate  beside  the  gluttonies  of 
Charles  V.  ;  and  every  healthy  nature  would  say,  Better 
locusts  and  wild  honey  with  John  the  Baptist  than  to 
participate  in  the  orgies  of  the  "  hog  Vitellius ;  "  and  at  all 
degrees  between,  it  is  plain  where  the  emphasis  of  our 
truer  appreciation  lies.  On  the  other  hand  the  scholar 
whose  severe  application  has  brought  dimness  to  his  eyes; 
the  philosopher  the  vigils  of  whose  thought  are  traced  in  a 
stooping  form  and  a  sallow  countenance,  we  gently  dis- 
approve and  deeply  admire.  Bodily  strength  and  grace 
we  need  not  esteem  lightly ;  bringing  the  physical  to  its 
fairer  and  more  robust  development  may  be  honoring  the 
Creator  of  it;  and  the  Greeks,  in  that  they  sought  it,  were 
wiser  than  the  Christian  anchorites  in  that  they  despised 
it ;  yet  to  gain  a  sage  we  would  gladly  sacrifice  an  athlete. 

This  difference,  so  markedly  shown  in  the  contrast 
between  the  animal,  subject  to  no  change  save  in  the 
way  of  animal  improvement  and  deterioration,  and  man, 
advanced  through  all  the  measureless  ranges  of  psychical 
progress,  is  implicated  in  yet  another  contrast  of  great 
significance.  The  outfit  of  the  animal  seems  an  ideal  pro- 
vision for  the  purely  terrestrial  sphere  appointed  to  it; 
that  of  man,  if  the  terrestrial  sphere  be  all  that  is 
appointed  for  him,  seems  clearly  a  vast  over-provision. 
The  scope  of  the  animal's  life,  the  range,  that  is,  of  its 
possible  interest,  is  the  immediate  and  present.  Its  space 
is  here;  — around  it  bends  the  circle  of  the  horizon,  but  it 
is  incurious  as  to  what  lies  beyond ;  under  it  is  the  earth, 
but  it  looks  down  in  no  inquiry;  over  it  hang  the  heavens, 
but  it  looks  up  in  no  wonder.  Its  time  is  now;  —  behind 
it  is  a  past  that  invites  to  no  retrospect;  before  it  is  a 
future  that  beckons  with  no  vision.  In  this  we  see  an 
ideal  fitness.  Allowing  that  to  the  animals  this  is  the  only 
world,  it  is  enough  that  they  fit  into  it  as  it  comes. 

When  we  come  to  man,  however,  if  we  still  grant  this 

28 


434  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

life  to  be  all,  this  ideal  has  apparently  no  recognition. 
We  deal  here  indeed  with  incommensurable  terms;  and 
Dr.  Martineau  asks,  "  How  can  we  compare  capacity  of 
reason  with  decades  of  years?"  Yet  a  proportion  he 
recognizes,  and  all  recognize,  between  the  endowment  of 
a  nature  and  its  persistency  and  range  of  achievement. 
You  do  not  give  to  the  pleasure  boat  the  outfit  of  a  ship 
to  the  Indies,  nor  to  an  ephemeron  that  lives  but  a  day  the 
equipment  of  a  being  of  threescore  and  ten.  Yet  if  the 
terrestrial  period  be  all  there  is  for  man,  something  like 
this  disproportion,  only  far  more  marked,  is  forced  upon 
us.  Few  there  are  who,  the  fact  of  immortality  being 
granted,  would  see  any  incongruity  between  the  powers  of 
man  and  the  career  thus  appointed  him.  If  this  life,  then, 
be  all,  we  have  before  us  the  bewildering  thought  of  a 
being  equipped  for  eternity  and  doomed  to  perish  in 
threescore  and  ten. 

The  outfit  of  man  as  a  purely  terrestrial  being  —  what 
should  it  be?  What  more  could  he  stipulate  than  that  he 
be  treated  as  other  animals  are  treated?  which,  of  course, 
would  mean  that  he  be  provided  with  other  faculties  than 
theirs  as  his  special  and  human  needs  were  to  be  other. 
The  full  range  of  this  claim  few  might  venture  to  specify 
off-hand ;  but  it  would  seem  to  imply,  beyond  the  range 
of  other  animals,  the  ability  to  draw  food  from  the  earth ; 
to  provide  clothing  for  his  protection,  and  arms  for  his 
defence,  and  medicine  for  his  ills,  and  surgery  for  his 
hurts;  to  find  out  fire  and  iron  and  the  manifold  uses  of 
the  forge;  to  pile  wood  and  stone  into  dwellings;  to 
expand  the  footpath  into  the  highway ;  to  grade  the  hill, 
and  clear  the  forest,  and  drain  the  swamp;  to  find  out 
what  servants  he  may  have  in  wind  and  heat  and  water;  to 
construct  an  alphabet  and  organize  a  language ;  to  found 
a  home,  and  build  up  a  social  and  civic  structure.  All 
this  taken  together  is  very  much  indeed;  but  allow  it  all 


FREEDOM   AND   IMMORTALITY  435 

embraced  in  our  stipulation,  and  add  to  it  whatever  else  a 
human  being  with  only  a  terrestrial  outlook  may  require, 
and  what  approximation  will  it  make  to  the  sum  total  of 
endowment  that  man  possesses?  Take  from  him  all  not 
embraced  in  this  provision,  and  would  he  be  the  being 
that  he  is?  The  obvious  answer  is  that  the  scope  of  his 
powers  is  immeasurably  beyond  all  this ;  that  man's  ca- 
pacities cut  down  to  these  proportions,  the  features  that 
are  his  distinguishing  glory,  were  gone.  Here  is  con- 
templated only  the  near  and  the  practical,  while  the  hu- 
man range  embraces  the  far  and  ideal. 

Dr.  Martineau  remarks  in  his  characteristic  way  that 
while  other  creatures  live  in  Time,  Time  lives  in  man 
alone ;  and  the  same  also  he  finds  true  as  respects  Space. 
His  thought  is  not  recondite;  it  is  a  truth  all  recognize 
that  to  man  alone  is  a  past  with  its  glories  and  its  shames, 
a  future  with  its  dreads  and  its  hopes,  a  field  of  vision 
stretching  around  him  in  ever-widening  horizon.  To  one, 
however,  at  all  conversant  with  the  Critical  Philosophy, 
the  truth  is  capable  of  being  borne  home  more  profoundly 
and  impressively.  However  we  may  define  Space  and 
Time,  it  is  simply  true  that  what  we  may  dare  to  call  their 
laws  are  laws  of  the  human  mind.  On  the  perception  of 
these  laws  the  mazy  structure  of  our  mathematics  is 
reared ;  and  our  celestial  calculations  are  made  by  a 
science  wholly  a  priori  in  its  origin.  We  draw  it  from 
within  ourselves  and  apply  it  to  the  computations  of  the 
moons  of  Jupiter  and  the  measurement  of  the  orbit  of 
Saturn,  with  no  doubt  whatever  that  if  accuracy  rules  our 
processes  truth  will  be  the  issue  of  them.  That  is  to  say, 
two  infinities  meet  in  man,  and  he  runs  backward  and  for- 
ward on  the  one,  and  out  on  all  radii  of  the  other,  drawing 
ever  out  of  himself  a  knowledge  of  their  laws.  This  is  an 
impressive  truth,  —  man  not  naturalized,  but  freeborn  into 
these  infinities.      And  what  shall  we  say  to  the  further 


436  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

truth   that  at  will  he  leaps  out  of  both,  and  roams  free  in 
a  supersensible  and  metaphysic  world? 

This  endowment  of  a  purely  terrestrial  nature,  destined 
for  the  brief  period  of  threescore  and  ten,  seems  an  im- 
measurable over-endowment.  If  our  scope  is  thus  indeed 
restricted,  the  question  as  to  this  over-endowment  is  a 
most  bewildering  one.  Grant  that  we  need  yesterday  for 
its  experience  and  to-morrow  for  its  foresight ;  yet,  with 
relations  thus  restricted  to  our  own  period,  what  need 
have  we  of  these  immeasurable  reaches  beyond  it?  What 
need  of  the  record  of  Pharaonic  dynasties,  or  of  the  story 
told  by  the  monuments  of  Thebes  and  Karnak?  For  the 
practical  guidance  of  to-day  are  we  helped  in  any  measure 
by  what  we  have  learned  of  the  Aryan  migrations  or  the 
wars  of  the  Pelasgi?  Is  our  political  economy  furthered 
by  what  we  may  know  of  the  trade  of  Tyre,  or  our  states- 
manship instructed  by  our  knowledge  of  the  decrees  of 
Sennacherib?  What  need  of  research  into  geological 
antiquities?  Or,  changing  the  direction  of  our  glance, 
what  need  of  millennial  forecasts?  —  Of  what  advantage  is 
it  to  know  when  the  pole  star  will  stand  in  our  zenith,  or 
when  the  sun  will  reach  the  Constellation  of  Hercules? 
With  relations  in  space  so  restricted,  what  need  of  an  ever- 
expanding  horizon?  What  need  of  the  stellar  infinitude 
and  the  astronomer's  free  life  in  it?  Further,  while  en- 
gaged in  practical  estimates  we  may  ask  what  need  of 
the  Analytical  Geometry  and  the  Differential  Calculus? 
What  need  of  knowledge  of  the  ultimate  elements  of  mat- 
ter, or  of  the  chemistry  of  light,  or  of  the  revelations  of 
the  microscope  and  spectroscope,  the  correlation  of  forces, 
the  derivative  origin  of  species,  the  specific  gravity  of 
Jupiter,  the  periodicities  of  Uranus?  What  need  to  add 
to  all  these  the  domain  which  philosophy  opens  to  our 
contemplation?  What  need  of  the  mystic  realm  of  Bee- 
thoven's music,  and  Goethe's  drama,  and  Dante's  poetry? 


FREEDOM   AND   IMMORTALITY  43/ 

Of  endowment  equal  to  the  achievement  of  these  things, 
and  the  impulse  to  achieve  them,  for  a  being  thus  re- 
stricted, what  need  ?  Why  in  the  case  of  man  this  incalcu- 
lable departure  from  the  manifest  ideal  met  in  all  the  lower 
kingdoms  of  animal  existence?  Making  our  estimate  on 
the  strictly  utilitarian  basis,  stipulating  for  man,  according 
to  his  nature,  such  equipment  only  as  other  terrestrial 
natures  have,  there  is  no  need.  The  provision  for  his 
brief  earthly  life  far  surpasses  the  earthly  requirement. 
Even  though  we  make  our  own  the  saying  of  Coleridge, 
"  We  construct  our  earthly  charts  from  celestial  observa- 
tions," still  our  contention  is  unshaken.  Still  may  it  be 
successfully  shown  that  for  the  purely  earthly  guidance 
the  nearer  luminaries  are  sufficient  for  our  needs.  In  the 
days  of  Athens'  glory  Plato's  thought  was  of  small  con- 
sequence in  the  Agora,  and  the  archons  had  little  use  for 
Aeschylos.  The  vast  structure  of  the  Roman  Empire 
shows  nothing  more  plainly  than  how  the  common  needs 
may  be  supplied,  power  established  and  preserved,  civiliza- 
tion built  up  and  extended,  without  the  higher  intellectual 
endowments.  Its  characteristic  great  man  was  the  soldier, 
not  the  sage ;  the  lawgiver,  not  the  philosopher ;  the 
architect,  not  the  scientist ;  the  engineer,  not  the  poet. 
Indeed,  considering  the  period  of  its  duration  and  the  ex- 
tent of  its  sway,  its  conquests  in  the  higher  realms  of 
intellect  were  singularly  slight.  It  produced  not  a  poet, 
not  a  philosopher,  of  the  first  class;  and  were  the  volume 
of  its  literary  creation  suddenly  to  be  blotted  from  exist- 
ence, with  here  and  there  a  regret  for  Seneca,  a  grief  for 
Cicero,  a  sigh  for  Horace,  a  tear  for  Virgil,  and  a  lament 
for  Tacitus,  the  world  would  go  on  with  no  sense  of 
irreparable  loss.  Good  work  here  surely,  but  none  of 
those  vast  achievements  which  date  epochs  in  our  intel- 
lectual advance.  Of  Rome  it  was  peculiarly  true  that  her 
kingdom  was  of  this  world ;   and  if  it  were  whispered  to  us 


438  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

that  henceforth  we  must  get  on  without  the  higher  ener- 
gies of  intellect  we  might  take  comfort  from  the  example 
of  her  success.  Yet  the  common  judgment  is  right  in 
seeing  the  more  representative  man  in  him  of  wider  and 
higher  intellectual  relations:  in  Aristotle,  not  Alexander; 
in  Plato,  not  Pericles  ;  in  Dante,  not  Cosimo  de'  Medici;  in 
Goethe,  not  Frederick ;  in  Montesquieu,  not  Louis  XIV.; 
in  Milton,  not  Cromwell;  in  Newton,  not  William  III.; 
in  Wordsworth,  not  Wellington ;  in  Emerson,  not  Grant. 
There  is  the  philosopher,  Kant,  and  there  beside  him  is 
his  servant,  Lampe.  Into  the  vast  speculations  of  the 
former  the  latter  may  not  enter  ;  yet  in  the  philosopher 
the  valet  may  see  his  own  possibilities,  not  transcended, 
but  illustrated.  The  philosopher  with  all  his  greatness  has 
only  the  common  human  faculties ;  and  so  exhibits  in 
himself  what,  though  undeveloped,  is  yet  nascent  in  us 
all. 

Now  the  perplexity  we  encounter  here  draws  all  its 
significance  from  the  supposition  that  to  man  as  to  all 
other  terrestrial  natures  there  is  a  terrestrial  life  only. 
Reverse,  then,  the  supposition ;  allow  that  the  here  is  but 
a  prelude  to  a  there,  that  "  we  have  vaster  relations  than 
our  immediate  surroundings,"  and  the  perplexity  vanishes. 
The  disproportion  we  have  contemplated  between  outfit 
and  scope  of  existence  yields  to  a  sense  of  the  fairest 
proportion.  This  transient  tenant  of  the  world,  that 
finds  his  range  too  narrow,  is  really  a  destined  citizen  of 
the  universe,  awaiting  his  fuller  "  enfranchisement."  In 
the  "  excursions "  he  makes,  he  feels  "  the  outskirts 
of  a  problem  that  is  to  engage  larger  meditations  and 
maturer  powers ;  "  and  the  "  Science  that  transcends  the 
demands  of  one  life  "  he  is  permitted  to  feel  to  be  the 
"  propylaeum  of  another."  ^ 

This  contrast  of  outfit,  with  only  the  light  of  Natural 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  p.  351. 


FREEDOM   AND   IMMORTALITY  439 

History  in  which  to  study  it,  enfolds  perplexities  which 
only  deepen  as  we  meditate  upon  them.  Of  him  who 
allows  no  light  but  that  of  Natural  History  we  have  a 
right  to  ask  its  explanation.  Why  is  the  ideal  of  nature 
as  shown  in  the  endowment  of  the  lower  animals  so 
markedly  departed  from  in  the  case  of  man?  As  their 
endowment  is  measured  off  to  them  according  to  terres- 
trial needs,  why  not  his  also,  if  only  a  terrestrial  nature 
has  been  given  him?  Nor  is  this  question  here  raised 
for  the  first  time,  nor  was  Dr.  Martineau  the  first  to  raise 
it.  Early  in  the  century  Lord  Erskine  wrote :  "When  I 
reflect  that  God  has  given  to  inferior  animals  no  instincts 
nor  faculties  that  are  not  immediately  subservient  to  the 
ends  and  purposes  of  their  beings,  I  cannot  but  conclude 
that  the  reason  and  faculties  of  man  were  bestowed  upon 
the  same  principle,  and  are  connected  with  his  superior 
nature."  From  this  conclusion  he  draws  the  same  infer- 
ence as  Dr.  Martineau.  "  When  I  find  him,"  he  goes  on, 
"  endowed  with  powers  to  carry,  as  it  were,  the  line  and 
rule  to  the  most  distant  worlds,  I  consider  it  as  conclu- 
sive evidence  of  a  future  and  more  exalted  distinction, 
because  I  cannot  think  that  the  Creator  of  the  universe 
would  depart  from  all  the  analogies  of  the  lower  creation 
in  the  formation  of  the  highest  creature  by  gifting  him 
with  a  capacity  not  only  utterly  useless  but  destructive  of 
his  contentment  and  happiness,  if  his  existence  were  to 
terminate  in  the  grave."  Where  this  inference  is  repudi- 
ated it  is  difficult  to  see  what  possible  explanation  can  be 
given  of  this  break  in  the  analogy,  in  passing  from  the 
lower  orders  of  existence  to  the  higher.  The  inference 
granted,  however,  the  analogy  is  obviously  unbroken. 
Man  has  his  larger  endowment  as  a  provision  for  the 
ampler  range  yet  before  him. 

The  consideration  of  the  scope  of  man's  powers  counts 
for  much  with  Dr.  Martineau.     There  is  another  consider- 


440  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

ation,  however,  which,  as  conveyed  in  his  impressive 
language,  probably  counts  with  his  readers  for  not  less : 
it  is  of  man's  power  as  a  creator.  In  the  possession  of 
this  he  feels  man  to  be  "  above  the  measure  of  his  present 
lot."  •'  The  reflective  mind  of  man,  it  has  been  said,  alone 
is  the  mirror  of  nature;  but  more  than  this,  it  is  a  retain- 
ing mirror,  whereon  the  images,  once  left,  remain,  and 
shine  in  the  dark;  and,  most  of  all,  it  is  a  redisposing,  a 
beautifying,  a  quickening  mirror,  that  drops  the  matter 
and  keeps  the  meaning  of  things,  freshens  their  colours, 
deepens  their  expression,  and  so  shifts  their  scenery 
as  to  shape  a  drama  from  a  chronicle.  Well  may  the 
poet  be  called  by  the  half-sacred  name  of  Vates ;  for  the 
ideal  transformation  of  the  actual  is  as  divine  a  miracle 
as  the  turning  of  dust  into  dew-drops;  and  the  moulding 
of  language  into  an  instrument  for  this  end,  that  its 
rhythm  and  its  fire  may  sweep  through  the  ages,  still 
waking  up  wrath  and  love  and  pity  wherever  it  alights, 
is  a  marvel  surpassed  only  by  our  blindness  to  it."  ^  If 
valued  for  nothing  else,  this  language  might  well  be  treas- 
ured as  a  wonderful  account  of  an  unaccountable  wonder. 
There  are  two  orders  of  creation  that  endure.  One  is 
illustrated  in  the  coral  reef,  in  the  bridge,  the  aqueduct, 
the  highway,  the  structure  of  a  language,  society,  or  gov- 
ernment ;  in  a  church,  a  university,  in  all  of  which  many 
co-operate,  and  a  succeeding  generation  may  carry  for- 
ward what  a  previous  one  begins.  "  Such  monuments 
record  the  power  of  the  social  spirit,  and  measure  for  us 
the  greatness  of  nations,"  The  other  order  is  altogether 
personal,  the  embodied  conception  of  one  mind,  its  very 
genius  excluding  all  participation.  We  meet  it  in  the 
transcendent  achievements  of  art  and  song  and  letters: 
in  the  dome  of  St.  Peter's,  in  the  Campanile  at  Florence, 
in  the  wonderful  delineations  of  Raphael,  Angelico,  Da 

1  Study  of  Religion y  vol.  ii.  pp.  352-353. 


FREEDOM   AND   IMMORTALITY  44 1 

Vinci,  in  the  sonatas  of  Beethoven  and  the  Messiah  of 
Handel,  in  the  Iliad,  the  Agamemnon,  the  Divina  Corn- 
media,  Job,  Faust,  Hamlet,  Saul.  These  are  publica- 
tions of  the  solitary  soul.  To  add  to  them  is  to  outrage 
them ;  to  mend  them  is  to  destroy  them.  Their  reality 
is  in  the  unity  of  the  one  mind  that  brought  them  forth. 
From  age  to  age  they  experiment  upon  individual  souls, 
leaving  upon  them  the  priceless  impress  of  wisdom, 
holiness,  beauty.  They  are  stars  in  our  intellectual 
firmament;  and  no  orb  in  all  the  galaxy  above  us  more 
truly  witnesses  a  creative  mind  than  they. 

It  is  such  creations  that  Dr.  Martineau  is  contemplating 
in  the  passage  above  quoted.  Whither  may  they  lead 
our  contemplation?  I  cast  my  eyes  upon  my  book- 
shelves where  my  chief  treasures  are,  not  costly  and  yet 
priceless.  There  is  Plato,  and  beside  him  Goethe,  and 
beside  him  Pascal,  and  Dante  is  close  by,  and  Kant 
and  Hume  and  Berkeley  just  a  little  further  away.  There, 
too,  are  Shakespeare  and  Milton  and  Browning  and 
Emerson ;  and  before  me  is  an  open  volume  wherein  I 
read,  "  Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway."  These  words  seem 
spoken  to  me ;  and  from  all  these  great  ones  I  turn  with 
the  sense  of  personal  interview.  Their  page  when  most 
impersonal  is  as  a  letter  they  have  written  me.  This 
sense  of  personal  relation  with  the  great  artist  or  the 
great  poet  or  the  great  teacher  is  certainly  the  common 
one.  But  the  two  terms  of  the  relation,  —  what  and 
where  are  they?  The  second  is  indubitably  here;  "is 
the  first  of  them  nothing  and  nowhere?  and  is  the  homage 
it  wrings  from  me  paid  to  a  blank?  or  to  a  dead  book 
only,  —  to  blotted  paper,  or  coloured  canvass,  or  an 
orchestral  score?  Heart-worship,  like  God,  is  not  of 
the  dead,  but  of  the  living;  and  that,  in  the  thought- 
glance  with  which  we  look  up  to  a  Homer,  a  Dante,  a 
Shakespeare,  there  should  be  no  reciprocity  possible,  — 


442  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

that  in  reverencing  the  prophets,  we  do  but  decorate 
their  tombs,  —  that  the  touch  which  wakes  such  fires 
within  us  should  be  that  of  a  quenched  torch,  would 
expel  their  chief  meaning  from  the  noblest  relations 
subsisting  among  human  minds.  A  great  creative  per- 
sonality may  be  lonely  and  neglected  in  his  day;  and 
only  when  the  reflection  which  he  leaves  of  himself  travels 
down  the  ages,  does  he  select  and  gather  together  his 
natural  associates  and  lovers :  and  shall  he  never  hear 
the  chorus  of  that  great  company,  or  know  of  that  life 
which  began  for  him  when  life  had  ended?  "^ 

Through  another  and  related  aspect  we  come  to  another 
and  related  consideration.  In  our  philosophizing  it  is 
not  our  wont  to  think  of  an  effect  as  more  enduring  than 
its  cause,  when  the  real  and  ultimate  cause  has  been 
found.  Phenomena  pass,  but  not  their  originating  spring. 
You  hold  audience  with  Emerson?  Oh  no,  there  is  no 
Emerson.  There  was  an  Emerson  once,  a  phantom,  that 
is,  to  which  we  gave  the  name,  which  flitted  here  and 
there  across  our  path,  and  left  this  imperisJiable  record. 
His  visions,  his  heart-beats,  he  built  into  this  enduring 
memorial  and  —  vanished!  The  creation  abides;  the 
creator  is  no  more !  Here  are  his  phenomena ;  he  — 
where  ?  The  stream  flows  on  —  its  fountain  long  since 
gone!  The  light  abides;  the  snn  extinguished!  The 
suggestion  seems  almost  to  carry  its  own  refutation. 
Not  only  does  it  bewilder  our  sense  of  what  is  inherently 
fitting,  but  it  inverts  one  of  the  primary  conceptions  on 
which  our  philosophy  is  founded.  "  Can  a  word  that  is 
immortal  come  from  a  speaker  that  is  ephemeral?" 

Yet  another  consideration  puts  in  a  persuasive  plea. 
Though  mind  as  we  know  it  is  related  with  a  physical 
organism,  and  therefore,  when  that  organism  perishes, 
ceases    from   that   mode    of  activity  with  which    we  are 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  pp.  353-354- 


FREEDOM   AND   IMMORTALITY  443 

acquainted,  who  can  say  that  with  the  decay  of  the  or- 
ganism its  possibilities  have  been  surely  reaHzed?  Very 
especially  in  the  case  of  great  men  is  the  significance  of 
this  question  borne  in  upon  us.  The  great  things  they 
achieve  —  are  they  more  than  hints  of  greater  achieve- 
ments that  were  possible,  were  opportunity  given  them? 
The  intellect  that  brought  forth  the  Divina  Commedia  — 
who  can  feel  that  its  capacities  were  exhausted  with  this 
consummate  production?  What  lament  of  great  minds 
is  more  common  than  that  they  have  not  time  to  make 
real  the  ideals  which  mental  faculty  alone,  and  apart 
from  physical  decay,  should  make  so  possible  to  them? 
But  for  this  limitation,  what  conquests  in  science  might 
Agassiz  have  made !  What  songs  might  Tennyson  have 
sung !  With  this  consideration  in  mind  Dr.  Martineau 
remarks  that  the  fact  that  one  sees  "  what  he  must  relin- 
quish, and  resigns  it  with  regret,  shows  that  he  could 
conquer  it,  if  he  had  a  chance ;  and  it  is  precisely  at  the 
end  of  life,  that,  from  the  vantage-ground  of  a  lofty  ele- 
vation and  a  large  survey,  he  most  intently  turns  to  the 
horizon  and  best  discerns  the  outline  of  the  promised 
land  on  which  his  eyes  are  about  to  close."  This  he 
follows  with  the  impressive  statement :  "  I  do  not  know 
that  there  is  anything  in  nature  (unless  indeed  it  be  the 
reputed  blotting-out  of  suns  in  the  stellar  heavens)  which 
can  be  compared  in  wastefulness  with  the  extinction  of 
great  minds :  their  gathered  resources,  their  matured 
skill,  their  luminous  insight,  their  unfailing  tact,  are  not 
like  instincts  that  can  be  handed  down ;  they  are  abso- 
lutely personal  and  inalienable;  grand  conditions  of  future 
power,  unavailable  for  the  race,  and  perfect  for  the  ulterior 
growth  of  the  individual.  If  that  growth  is  not  to  be,  the 
most  brilliant  genius  bursts  and  vanishes  as  a  firework  in 
the  night.  A  mind  of  balanced  and  finished  faculties  is 
a   production    at   once    of  infinite    delicacy  and  of  most 


444  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

enduring  constitution;  lodged  in  a  fast  perishing  organ- 
ism, it  is  like  a  perfect  set  of  astronomical  instruments, 
misplaced  in  an  observatory  shaken  by  earthquakes  or 
caving  in  with  decay."  ^ 

Here  again  we  need  to  remember  that  great  and  small, 
as  applied  to  minds,  have  reference  to  range  of  develop- 
ment, not  difference  of  constitution.  Were  the  great 
fundamentally  other  than  the  small,  endowed,  that  is, 
with  capacities  of  which  in  the  less  favored  there  are  no 
germs,  then  immortality  might  be  conceived,  as  some 
have  conceived  it,  as  the  exclusive  privilege  of  the  great. 
But  it  is  not  so :  the  great  are  only  the  most  representa- 
tive ;  in  them  we  see  in  fairer  proportions  what  is  true 
of  all.  However  modestly  I  may  estimate  myself,  I  yet 
may  say  that  there  was  not  a  faculty  in  the  august  intel- 
lect of  Plato  that  is  not  also  in  mine.  The  fact  that  he 
can  speak  to  me  and  I  can  understand  him,  that  I  can 
explore  his  depths  and  scale  his  heights,  shows  that 
however  in  power  he  may  surpass  me  he  is  not  funda- 
mentally unlike  me.  It  is  not  likely  that  I  shall  ever 
write  a  Lycidas ;  but  I  cannot  doubt  that  I  am  at  least 
a  "  mute,  inglorious  Milton."  The  claim,  then,  that  we 
put  forward  for  the  great  is  true  for  all.  We  argue  not 
the  immortality  of  sages,  but  of  the  soul. 

So  much  do  we  find  in  the  prophecies  of  the  intellect. 

2.  TJie  Conscience.  After  God,  conscience  is  the  most 
solemn  word.  It  is  the  oracle  of  the  moral  law  within ; 
in  listening  to  it  we  hear  a  judgment  from  the  Universal 
Throne.  Its  decisions  are  ever  respecting  the  motives 
of  conduct.  This  is  worthier,  that  less  worthy;  and 
with  the  decision  an  obligation  is  laid  upon  us.  With 
the  ever  possible  obedience,  we  are  in  harmony  with  the 
Power  that  asks  it ;  with  the  ever  possible  disobedience, 
we  are  at  variance  with  that  Power.     Now  the  issue.     With 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  p.  356. 


FREEDOM   AND   IMMORTALITY  445 

the  freedom  to  obey  or  not  to  obey,  we  are  put  upon  a 
trial  that  depends  upon  ourselves.  "  The  alternatives  of 
a  trust  have  a  sequel  in  the  alternatives  of  a  reckoning. 
So  that  wherever  Conscience  is,  there  we  stand  only 
in  the  forecourt  of  existence ;  and  a  Moral  world  cannot 
be  final,  unless  it  be  everlasting."  ^  This  pregnant  sen- 
tence may  be  pondered  long. 

But,  admitting  that  alternative  consequences  must  ever 
follow  these  alternatives  of  conduct,  it  is  yet  often  doubted 
whether  it  is  necessary  to  look  to  another  world  for  them. 
Here  and  now,  it  is  argued,  men  may  reap  as  they  sow; 
blessing  for  their  blessing,  evil  for  their  sin.  In  illustra- 
tion of  this,  appeal  is  often  made  to  the  peace  of  the  un- 
sullied conscience,  and  to  the  twinges  of  guilt  and  shame 
that  attend  unfaithfulness.  In  the  presence  of  these,  it  is 
maintained  that  there  is  no  need  to  ask  a  future  in  which 
a  harvest  appropriate  to  the  sowing  shall  be  gathered. 

This  view  is  not  Dr.  Martineau's ;  and  by  way  of  con- 
troverting it  he  calls  attention  to  the  workings  of  con- 
science in  two  very  significant  aspects:  — 

Ideal  justice,  — what  does  that  stipulate?  In  a  specific 
case,  —  what  blessing  should  follow  upon  this  virtue,  what 
bane  should  be  the  issue  of  that  transgression,  it  would  be 
impossible  for  man  to  give  more  than  a  proximate  judg- 
ment. We  applaud  the  brave  and  the  self-denying;  we 
condemn  the  drunkard  and  the  liar.  But  the  deeper  con- 
siderations, —  motive,  temptation,  organized  predilection, 
without  reference  to  which  just  praise  or  blame  cannot  be 
awarded,  can  be  duly  estimated  only  by  the  mind  of  God. 
But  while  we  may  be  unable  in  the  specific  case  to  make 
the  absolutely  just  award,  we  all  recognize  a  principle  by 
which  just  awards  are  made,  and  which  requires  that  the 
"  greater  excellence  should  have  the  ampler  recognition, 
and  the  deeper  guilt  should  have  the  most  to  bear."^     In 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  p.  361.  ^  yj/^  p  ^g^. 


446  JAMES   MARTINEAU 

our  earthly  relations  this  principle  rules  our  judgments. 
In  our  courts  the  lighter  sentence  is  for  the  first  offence, 
and  penalties  become  severer  as  transgressions  are  re- 
peated. On  the  other  hand  we  smile  upon  the  toiler  after 
higher  excellence  in  his  earlier  successes,  applaud  his  yet 
nobler  achievement ;  but  withhold  from  him  his  crown  till 
some  distinguished  triumph  has  been  won.  This  rule  may 
not  be  always  consistently  followed,  yet  it  is  our  rule; 
and  we  are  sure  that  neither  in  heaven  nor  among  men 
can  there  be  justice  apart  from  it. 

Now  this  rule,  however  recognized  in  outward  judgment, 
in  inward  experience  is  practically  inverted.  The  young 
man,  encountering  temptation,  may  be  conscious  of  moral 
elation  in  his  earlier  victories  ;  but  as  he  goes  on, 

"'Still  treading  each  temptation  down, 
And  battling  for  a  brighter  crown," 

as  by  repetition  of  victories  he  rises,  and  his  vision  of  duty 
becomes  larger  and  his  insight  into  its  meaning  clearer 
and  deeper,  his  triumphs  cease  to  elate  him ;  the  height 
that  is  won  is  forgotten  in  contemplation  of  the  height 
that  is  above  him.  While  to  others  he  may  seem  so  far 
from  earth,  he  is  only  conscious  that  heaven  is  so  distant; 
and  so,  though  few  may  deserve  better,  few  are  less  con- 
scious of  desert  than  he.  Hence  it  is  that  at  the  moral 
summits  of  humanity  we  hear  a  Channing  complaining  of 
the  hardness  of  his  heart,  a  Wesley  bewailing  his  unbelief, 
a  Luther  lamenting  his  want  of  steadfastness,  and  Paul 
crying,  "  Oh  wretched  man  that  I  am  !  "  Looking  in  the 
other  direction,  we  find  it  correspondingly  the  same.  In 
the  punishments  of  conscience  there  is  ever  the  sharper 
pang  for  the  earlier  sin ;  and  suffering  is  ever  less  as 
transgression  is  repeated.  So  he  may  suffer  least  whose 
guilt  is  greatest;  and  the  sinning  soul  may  indurate  itself 
beyond  the  scorchings  of  retribution. 


FREEDOM   AND   IMMORTALITY  447 

For  these  reasons  it  seems  impossible  to  admit  that 
"  our  Moral  nature  runs  through  its  own  cycle,  and  fulfils 
its  own  idea,  in  our  experience  here.  It  announces  a 
righteous  rule  which  again  and  again  it  brings  to  mind 
and  will  not  suffer  to  be  forgotten,  but  of  which  it  does 
not  secure  the  execution.  It  is  a  prophecy,  carrying  its 
own  credentials  in  an  incipient  foretaste  of  the  end,  but 
holding  its  realization  in  reserve;  and  if  Death  gives  final 
discharge  alike  to  the  sinner  and  the  saint,  we  are  war- 
ranted in  saying  that  Conscience  has  told  more  lies  than  it 
has  ever  called  to  their  account."  ^ 

Thus  he  finds  the  Intellect  and  Conscience,  both  plead- 
ing for  immortality,  the  one  for  the  exercise  of  its  powers, 
the  other  for  the  realization  of  its  justice,  and  he  admits 
their  plea.  The  fact  that  these  may  not  be  here,  is  to  him 
sufficient  warrant  that  there  must  be  a  there. 

Here  we  leave  him.  The  faith  which  Positivism  must 
disown,  and  Pantheism  cannot  encourage,  and  Evolution 
can  barely  allow,  supported  by  Dr.  Martineau's  philoso- 
phy, may  be  strong  and  buoyant.  A  dogma  he  does  not 
offer  us ;  the  warrant  of  a  science  he  does  not  claim. 
Through  his  intense  believing,  however,  and  his  lofty 
thinking,  he  bears  in  upon  us  a  certitude  that  is  clear  and 
strong  and  sufficing.  It  must  be  a  stubborn  scepticism 
that,  emerging  from  the  deeps  of  this  great  Stiidy^  cannot 
say  with  the  Emperor  Marcus,  "  What  springs  from  earth 
dissolves  to  earth  again,  and  heaven-born  things  fly  to 
their  native  seat." 

1  Study  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  p.  365. 


INDEX 


Abbott,  Ezra,  239. 

Aberdeen,  University  of,  119. 

Academy,  The,  141. 

Acosmism  and  atheism,  402. 

Act  of  Uniformity,  The,  42. 

Addison,  Joseph,  126. 

Address  to  James  Martineau,  eighty-third 

birthday,  11S-120;  reply  to,  120-122. 
Admetos,  iS. 
Aeschylos,  125,  437. 
Affection,  Compassionate,  3S8. 
Agamemnon,  —  Aeschylos,  441. 
Agassiz,  Louis,  128,  224,  245,  34S,  443. 
Agnosticism,   Club    to  combat,    97-99 ; 

Kant's  and  Hume's,  compared,  2S0- 

2S5. 
Akenside,  Mark,  139. 
Alderson,  Dr.,  9,  10, 
Alexander,  43S. 
Alger,  William,  R.,  78  n.,  88;  letter  to, 

from  Dr.  Martineau,  98  n.,  229  n. 
"All   we    know    is    phenomena,"    294, 

304- 
Alphonso  of  Castile,  354. 
Altruism  in  Nature,  377. 
Amsterdam,  University  of,  119. 
Ancient  Egypt  H7ider  the  Pharaohs,  J. 

Kenrick.  24. 
Andover  Theological  School,  119,  162. 
Andrews,  St.,  University  of,  118. 
Angelico,  Fra,  440. 
Angelo,  Michael,  138. 
Animal,  The.  outfit  of  an  ideal  provision 

for  a  terrestrial  sphere,  433. 
Annas,  242. 

Anomalies  vs.  Customs  of  Heaven,  172. 
Anthedon,  341. 
Anthropomorphism,  348. 
Antonines,  The,  251, 


Antoninus,  Marcus  Aurelius,  371,  447. 
Apocalypse,   The,    239 ;   authorship    of, 

240-241. 
Apollinaris,  237,  246. 
Apollo,   18. 

Apostles,  The,  39,  178,  231, 
Aquinas,  Thomas,  155-156. 
Argyll,  Duke  of,  98  n. 
Arianism,  21,  163-164,  165,  196. 
Aristides,  16. 
Aristotle,  27,  76,  80,  93,  123,  128,  320, 

353-354.  438- 
Armstrong,  Rev.  James,  38. 
Armstrong,  Rev.  R.  A.,  92. 
Arnold,  Sir  Edwin,  119. 
Arnold,  Thomas,  14,  79. 
Aryans,  436. 

Assembly's  Catechism,  36. 
"  Asses  of  Parnassus,"  127. 
Association,  Law  of,  423. 
Athanasius,  St.,  66. 
Atheism  and  acosmism,  402. 
Athenagoras,  251. 

Atkinson,  Henry  George,  84-85,  86. 
Atonement,  The,  71,  173-174. 
Augustine,  St.,  214,  375. 
Austin,  10. 
Authority  in  Religion,  54;  Catholic  view 

of,   221;  Protestant  view  of,  221-222; 

philosophic  view  of,  222-225  ;  internal 

and  external,  225-226. 
Automatism  vs.  Intelligence,  338. 
Axiom  of  Causality,  99,  314  n. 

B. 

Bacon,  Francis,  76,  127,  139,  245,  362. 
Bain,  Alexander,  93,  98  n.,  124,  306. 
Balfour,  Arthur  J.,  122. 
Bank  of  England,  134. 
Baptist,  John  the,  135. 


29 


450 


INDEX 


Barbauld,  Anna  Laetitia,  8  n.,  9. 

Barnes,  Thomas,  21. 

Battle  of  the  Churches,  The,  82. 

Baur,  Ferdinand  Christian,  229,  236. 

Baxter,  Richard,  36,  37,  45,  208. 

Beatitudes,  Mount  of,  140. 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  142,  150. 

Beethoven,  Ludwig  van,  436,  441. 

Belfast,  166. 

Belfast   Address,    The,  John   Tyndall, 

335' 
Belsham,  Thomas,  162. 

Bentham,  Jeremy,  51,  no,  124,  363. 

Bentley,  Richard,  79. 

Bergerac,  2. 

Berkeley,  Bishop,  32S,  413,  441. 

"Besetting  God,"  The,  150. 

Bethany,  242. 

Bible,  The,  168,  178,  260. 

"  Bible  and  the  Child,"  The,  179. 

"  Bible,  The  :  What  it  is  and  What  it  is 
not,"  169. 

Birth-rate,  Excessive,  357. 

Blandrata,  Giorgio,  214. 

Boeckh,  August,  26. 

"  Bona  Fides  of  our  intuitive  witnesses," 
2S9. 

Bossuet,  Bishop,  130. 

Boswell,  James,  79. 

Bounty,  Royal,  45,  46,  47,  48. 

Bowen,  Francis,  300. 

Bradley,  G.  G.,  119. 

Bretschn eider,  Karl  GottUeb,  228. 

Bridgewaier  Treatises,  The,  335,  337. 

Bristol,  Bishop  of,  98. 

British  and  Foreign  Unitarian  Associa- 
tion, The,  209,  210,  211. 

British  Museum,  The,  36  n. 

Brobdingnag,  369. 

Brooks,  Phillips,  120. 

Brougham,  Lord,  7. 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas.  10. 

Browning,  Robert,  98  n.,  119,  141,  432, 
441. 

Bunsen,  Baron,  241. 

Bunyan,  John,  239. 

Butler,  Joseph,  92,  125. 

Byron,  Lord,  141. 

c. 

Caesar,  Julius,  2S3. 

Caesarea  Philippi,  Declaration  at,  271- 
274. 


Caiaphas,  242. 

Caird,  Prof.  Edward,  288,  353. 

Cairn  Gorm  Mountains,  136. 

Calculus,  The,  43,  436. 

Caliban,  358. 

Calvary,  234. 

Calvin,  John,  375,  423. 

Calvinism,  190. 

Calvinists,  429. 

Campanile,  at  Florence,  440. 

Canon,  Genuineness  of,  117. 

Canute,  10. 

Capel,  Thomas  J.,  54. 

Cappe,  Catliarine,  29-30. 

Cappe,  Newcome,  29  n. 

Carlstadt,  A.  R.  Bodenstein,  227. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  83,  124,  141. 

Carpenter,  J.  Estlin,  15,  92,  264  n. 

Carpenter,  Lant,  13-19,  35,  78. 

Carpenter,  Mary,  15. 

Carpenter,  W.  B.,  15,  98,  99,  125,  308, 
31S  n. 

Cartesians,  108. 

Categorical  Imperative,  The,  141,  360. 

Categories,  The,  Kant's  inferences  from 
them  criticised,  288. 

Catholic,  The,  45,  46,  47,  48,  49. 

Catholic  Church,  The,  52,  225. 

Catholic  Emancipation,  17. 

Catiline,  179. 

Causal  Idea,  The,  300. 

Causation,  Two  theories  of,  300-301 ; 
phenomenal  theory  of,  301  seq. ;  dy- 
namical theory  of,  311  seq.  ;  Hume's 
view  of.  2S1,  301-303  ;  Comte's,  303- 
304  ;  Mill's,  304-305 ;  Kant's,  310- 
311  ;  Martineau's,  311  seq.  ;  reduced 
to  uniform  succession,  306;  empirical 
and  metaphysical  doctrines  of,  com- 
pared, 313. 

Cayman  Islands,  344. 

Cerebral  Psychology,  Bain,  95. 

Channing,  W.  E.,  82,  142,  147,  150,  165, 
166,  446. 

Chapman,  Mrs.  Maria  W.,  10,  11. 

Charles  I.,  398. 

Charles  II.,  44,  210. 

Charles  V.,  433. 

Chillincovorth,  William,  6,  36. 
Christ  Church,  Liverpool,  5S. 
"Christ's  Treatment  of  Guilt,"   156  n., 

"Christ  the  Divine  Word,"  150. 
Christian  Examiner,  The,  78. 


INDEX 


451 


Christian  Instincts  and  Modern  Doubt, 
A.  H.  Craufurd,  216  n. 

"Christian  Peace,"  150. 

Christian  Reformer,  The,  51,  78,  202, 
213  n. 

Christian  Teacher,  The,  57. 

"  Christian  View  of  Moral  Evil,"  174, 

'*  Christianity  without  Priest  and  with- 
out Ritual,"  176. 

Church  and  State,  79. 

Church  of  England,  20;  Sacerdotalism 
in,  17S. 

Church  of  England,   82. 

Church  vs  Sect,  212. 

Cicero,  104,  143,  437. 

Civil  War  in  America,  89. 

Clarendon  Press,  107. 

Clarke,  Samuel,  109. 

Clement  of  Alexandria,  242. 

Clementine  Recognitions,  23S. 

Clifford,  Prof.  W.  K.,  98,  99. 

Cobbe,    Frances    Power,    94,    160,   161, 

343"- 
Coleridge,  S.  T.,  124,  411,  437. 
Collins,  Anthony,  no. 
Columbia  Theological  School,  162. 
Columbus,  Christopher,  10. 
Combination  in  Nature,  343  seq, 
Commodus,  15. 
Common  Prayer,  igS. 
Comte,  Auguste,  84,  88,  loS,  113,  124, 

125,    224,    303-304,    308,    309,    36S, 

423- 

Congregationalism,  38. 

Conscience,  its  function,  359-362  ;  not  a 
reflection  of  Prudence,  363  ;  its  oracle 
not  from  the  higher  nature  in  man, 
367-36S ;  not  a  reflection  of  social 
sentiment,  36S-372  ;  the  voice  of  God, 
372-374 ;    a  forecast  of    immortality, 

444  s^'^- 
Contemforary  Rci'ieu',  237  n. 

Corinthians,  Epistles  to,  230. 

Correlation  of  growth,  343. 

Cosin,  Bishop,  10. 

Cotman,  John  S.,  10. 

Craufurd,  A.  H.,  216  n. 

Creed  of  Christendom,  The,  W.  R.  Greg, 

82,  i8o,  1S4. 
Crome,  John,  10. 
Cromwell,  Oliver,  39S,  43S. 
Crosby  and  Nichols,  88. 
Cudworth,  Ralph,  109. 
Cuvier,  Georges,  343,  348. 


Daily  News,  London,  5  n,,  7,  82  n. 

Dante  Alighieri,  144,  436,  438,  441. 

Darbishire,  F,,  104. 

Darbishire,  S.  D.,  104. 

Darwin,  Charles,  125,  126,  224,  343. 

Darwinism   in   Morals,    F.   P.   Cobbe, 

3431. 
David,  Son  of,  74,  247,  265. 
Davy,  Sir  Humphry,  320. 
De  Wette,  Wilhelm  M.  L.,  228. 
Death,  the  transition  of,  192. 
Declaration  of  Independence,  The,  239. 
Deism,    cardinal    features  of,   401-402 ; 

maintained     Divine      Transcendency, 

401  ;   its   God  always  a  person,  406 ; 

criticised,  405-406. 
Democritus,  85. 
Demosthenes,  27,  129. 
Deontology,  Bentham,  51. 
Derby,  18,  19. 
Derbyshire,  9  n. 

"  Derivative  origin  of  phenomena,"  312. 
Descartes,  Rene,  123,  336,  33S,  348. 
Design,     objections     to    the    argimient 

from,  331,  335-354- 
Development  of  organs,  two  theories  of, 

342. 

Dewey,  Rev.  Orville,  150. 

Dickens,  Charles,  94. 

Diderot,  Denis,  in. 

Dieppe,  2. 

"  Discipline  of  Darkness,"  The,  150. 

Discourse  on  Matters  Pertaining  to  Re- 
ligion,  Theodore  Parker,  186. 

Divina  Commedia,  Dante,  441,  443. 

Domitian,  376. 

Dragonade,  The,  i,  2,  399. 

Drummond,  Henry,  377. 

Drummond,  James,  22. 

Dublin,  Mr.  Martineau's  call  and  settle- 
ment there,  35-37  ;  his  life  there,  44  ; 
moral  issue  tliat  severed  him  from  his 
congregation,  44-49 ;  losses  from  his 
congregation,  163. 

Dublin  University,  43  ;  honors  Dr.  Mar- 
tineau,  100. 

E. 

Early  Messianic  Ideas,  95. 
Ebionites,  The.  252. 

Ecclesiastical  organization,  basis  of,  207 
seq. 


452 


INDEX 


Eckhart,  Johannes,  150,  403. 

Edict  of  Nantes,  i  ;  Revocation  of,  i,  2, 

399- 
Edinburgh  University,  honors  Dr.  Mar- 

tineau,  100  ;  119. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  9,  110,423. 

Efficient  and  Effect,  301. 

Egypt  oj  Herodotus,  John  Kenrick,  24. 

Eichhorn,  Johann  Gottfried,  33. 

Elegant  ice  Latince,  Edward  V'alpy,  12. 

Elegy,  Thomas  Gray,  145. 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  52,  83,  126,  128,  134, 
160,171,  403,438,442. 

Endeavors  after  the  Christian  Life, 
7-8 ;  first  series  published,  78  ;  second 
series,  79)95,  107,  143,  145,  148-149, 
150,   172. 

Epicurean  Morality,  179. 

Epicureans,  The,  328. 

Epistles,  The,  167,  228;  genuine,  230. 

Erpingham,  Sir  Thomas,  10. 

Erskine,  Lord,  439. 

Essays,  Reviews,  and  Addresses,  51  ; 
their  publication,  118;  180,  183,  184, 
187,  197,  202,  203-204,  206,  212,  213- 
214,  217,  21S,  219,  314  n.,    322,  328, 

329,  33°-  333- 
Essays,   Theological  ajid  Philosophical, 

95- 
Essays,  Hume's,  280. 

Essex  Hall,  Convention  at,  209,  211. 

Eucharist,  The,  51. 

Europe  since  the  Reformation,  82. 

Eusebius,  237  n. 

Everlasting  Gospel,  The,  not  the  Primi- 
tive, 180. 

Evidence,  J.  A.  Froude,  99. 

Evolution  of  Religion,  The,  Prof.  Ed- 
ward Caird,  353. 

Evolution,  Philosophy  of,  96,  132. 

Ewald,  Heinrich  Georg  August  von,  241. 

Examination  of  Hamilton,  J.  S.  Mill, 
366. 

Ezekiel,  The  Book  of,  260  ;  the  Seer  in, 
268. 


"  Faith  the  deliverance  from  Fear,"  158. 

Fall,  Doctrine  of,  reviewed,  174-175. 

Faraday,  Michael,  126. 

Fatalism,  Necessity  implies  it,  427-428. 

Father  Taylor,  138. 

Faust,  Goethe,  441. 


Filiation,  not  a  gift,  253. 

Final  Causes,  336  seq. 

Final  Causes,  Paul  A.  R.  Janet,  342  n. 

Finite    and    the    Infinite     m   Human 

Nature,  The,  199. 
First    Principles,   Herbert  Spencer,  95, 

335- 
Five  Points  of  Christian  Faith,  78,  178. 

Florence,  Campanile  at,  440. 

Force,  behind  Nature,  318;  in  Nature, 
319  ,  Unity  of,  321  ;  ultimate  nature 
of,  not  revealed  to  the  senses,  321-325  ; 
resolved  into  Will,  325-326. 

Forces,  Correlation  of,  319-321. 

Forgiveness,  192. 

Foundations  of  Belief,  Arthur  J.  Bal- 
four, 122. 

Fourth  Gospel,  The,  231 ;  compared  with 
the  Synoptics,  234 ;  date  and  origin  of, 
236-253. 

France,  her  losses  from  the  Revocation 
of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  i. 

Frederick  the  Great,  438. 

"  Free  learning,"  20  n. 

Free  Will,  423  seq. 

Freedom,  involves  liability  to  sin,  391  ; 
how  related  to  immortality,  429. 

Froude,  J.  A.,  99,  396. 

Fuller,  Andrew,  64  n. 

Furness,  W.  H.,  220. 

Future  Punishment,  192-195. 

G. 

Gainsborough,  Thomas,  10, 

Galahad,  Sir,  76. 

Galatians,  Epistle  to  the,  230. 

Galilee,  242,  249,275. 

Garfield,  James  A.,  34. 

George  I.,  44. 

George,  Henry,  139. 

Giles,  Rev.  Henry,  57,  64. 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  50,  97. 

Glasgow,  University  of,  13,  119. 

Glaucus  of  Anthedon,  341. 

Gnosticism,  251. 

God  in  History,  187. 

Goethe,  133,  362,  404,  436,  438,  441. 

Gordon,  Rev.  Alexander,  20  n.,  92. 

Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews,  252. 

Gospel  of  Peter,  The,  122. 

Gospels,  The,  55,  167,  232,  233  ;  agree- 
ments and  disagreements  of,  228 ; 
significance  of  their  headings,  230. 


INDEX 


453 


Gradation  in  Nature,  346-348. 
Greek  Grammar,  Matthiae,  26. 
Grant,  U.S.,  43S. 
Greenwood,  Grace,  135. 
Greg,  W.  R.,  ibo,  184. 
Grote,  George,  96,  124. 
Grundy,  Rev.  John,  50,  51. 
Guyon,  Madame,  404. 

H. 

Haeckel,  Ernest,  343. 

Hall,  Bishop,  10. 

Hamilton,  Sir  William,  88,  93,  124, 125, 

132. 
Hamlet,  Shakespeare,  441. 
Handel,  George  Frederick,  441. 
Harnack,  Dr.  Adolf,  239. 
Harrison,  Frederic,  98,  99. 
Hartley,  David,  110,  181,  423. 
Hartmann,  Eduard  von,  393. 
Harvard  University   99,  119. 
Haworth,  F.,  104. 

Hedge,  F.  H,,  120,  133,336,  337,  4o3n- 
Hedonism,  363. 

Hegel,  G.W.  F.,  So,  81,  335,  411. 
Herod,  179. 

Herschel,  Sir  John,  330. 
Hewley,  Lady,  210,  211. 
Hibbert  Lectures,  Charles  B.  Upton,  299. 
Hierarchy,  The,  224. 
Higginson,  Rev.  Edward,  19. 
Higginson,  Helen,  36. 
Hildebrand,  224. 
Hill,  Rev.  Thomas  E.,  350. 
Holmes,  O.  W.,  120. 
Holy  Livin  an       Holy  Dying,  Jeremy 

Taylor,  78. 
Home  Prayers,  118. 
Homer,  76,  139,  441. 
Honduras,  Bay  of,  344. 
Honors  to  Dr.  Martineau,  99-106. 
Hope  Street  Church,  81,  145. 
Hopkins,  Mark,  34. 
Horace,  437. 
Houghton,  Lord,  10. 
Hours  of  Thought  on  Sacred  Things,  44, 

95,  107,  143,  145,  150. 
Howison,  Prof.  George  H.,  402. 
Huguenots,  The.  1-2,  5,  399. 
Humanitarianism.  164,  196. 
Humboldt,  Wilhelm  von,  25. 
Hume,  David,  123;  agnosticism  of,  280- 

282 ;    his  agnosticism  compared  with    I 


Kant's,  284-285  ;  301,  302,  303,  310, 

441. 
Hungary,  Unitarians  of,  103-106. 
Hunt,  John,  412. 
Hutton,  Rev.  Joseph,  37-39. 
liutton,  R.  H.,  80,  192-193. 
Huxley,  Tliomas,  98,  99,  280,  290,  328, 

343i  349,  378. 
Hymns  for  the   Christian  Church  and 

Home,  74. 
Hytnns  of  F raise  and  Prayer,  95. 

I. 

Iliad,  The,  441. 

Immanence,  Divine,  402,  407-410,  422. 

Immortality,  Freedom  essential  to,  430; 
testimony  of  the  intellect  to,  431  seq.\ 
testimony  of  conscience  to,  444  seq. 

In  Meinoriam,  Tennyson,  125. 

Inquirer,  The,  London,  213  n. 

Inspiration,  spiritual,  not  mechanical, 
169-170;  full  significance  of,  not  sure 
to  be  seen  by  him  who  brings  it,  180; 
nature  and  scope  of,  1S5-1S8. 

Intellect  in  man  and  the  lower  animals, 
431  seq. 

Irenseus,  232,  237  n. 

Isaiah,  5,  220,  260,  331. 

Islam,  214. 

Israelites,  The,  259. 

J- 

Jacob,  137. 

Jacobi,  Karl  Heinrich  Friedrich,  353. 

Jamaica,  344. 

Janet,  Paul  A.  R.,  342. 

Jena,  University  of,  119. 

Jeremiah,  220. 

Jerome,  St.,  432. 

Jerrold,  Douglas,  130. 

Jerusalem,  74 ;  Church  of,  243 ;  249, 
274,  275,  276,  277. 

Jesus  of  Nazara,  Dr.  Theodor  Keim, 
249. 

Jews,  The,  243,  404. 

Job,  441. 

John  the  Apostle,  239,  240,  243,  245. 

John  the  Baptist,  13;,  271,  433. 

John  the  Presbyter,  237  n. 

Johns  Hopkins  University,  119. 

Johnson,  Dr.  Samuel,  79,  141,  404;  re- 
futes Berkeley,  413. 

Jones,  Jeremiah,  33. 


454 


INDEX 


Jordan,  The,  242. 

Joshua,  259. 

Jouffroy,  Theodore-Simon,  139. 

Jowett,  Prof.  Benjamin,  118,  119. 

Judaism,  214. 

Judas,  191. 

Judges,  Book  of,  260. 

K. 

Kant,  Emanuel,  76,  81,  125,  279;  source 
of  prevailing  agnosticism,  2S0;  tests 
Hume's  doctrine,  282 ;  finds  an  a 
priori  element  in  all  knowledge,  283  ; 
his  agnosticism  vs.  Hume's,  2S4-2S5  ; 
his  doctrine  of  causation,  309-311 ;  Dr. 
Martineau  sets  out  with,  285  scq. ;  de- 
parts from,  310-311;  336,  438,  441. 

Keble  John,  214. 

Keim,  Dr.  Theodor,  239. 

Kempis,  Thomas  ^,  150. 

Kenrick,  John,  22  n.,  24,  27,  28,  30,  31, 
32,  104. 

Kepler,  Johann,  314. 

King,  Rev.  Thomas  Starr,  88. 

Knight,  Prof.  William,  118. 

Knowles,  James,  98. 

Knox,  John,  36. 

L. 

Lachmann,  Karl,  K.  F.  W.,  26. 

Lampe,  438. 

Laplace,    Pierre   Simon,    113,  312,  330, 

337. 

Lardner,  Nathaniel,  163  n. 

Law,  the  function  of,  313. 

Law,  William,  403. 

Laws  of  MarCs  Nature  and  Develop- 
ment, The,  G.  H.  Atkinson  and  Har- 
riet Martineau,  85. 

"  Laws  of  Succession,"  Comte's  substi- 
tute for  Cause,  304. 

LM.y  Sermons,  Huxley,  335. 

Lazarus,  his  resurrection  narrated  only 
in  the  Foiirth  Gospel,  248. 

Lecky,  W.  E.  H.,  119. 

Leeds,  Address  at,  211  n. 

Legge,  Thomas,  9. 

Leibnitz,  Gottfried  Wilhelm,  378. 

Lessing,  Gotthold  Ephraim,  88,  124,  228. 

Letter  and  Spirit,  82. 

Lewis,  Dio,  431. 

Lewis,  Mrs.  Leyson,  daughter  of  Dr. 
Martineau,  36. 


Leyden,  University  at,  100,  iig 

Life  and  Correspo?idence  of  Thomas 
Arnold,  79. 

Lightfoot,  John,  246. 

Lindsey,  Theopliilus,  163  n. 

Little  Portland  Street  Chapel,  its  earlier 
type  of  doctrine,  93 ;  calls  Dr.  Marti- 
neau and  J.  J.  Tayler  to  a  joint  pas- 
torate, 93-94  ;  its  outward  features, 
94;  145.  160. 

Liverpool  Controversy,  The,  57  seq., 
162,  168,  172,  178. 

LivingChurch  through  Changing  Creeds, 
The,  211  n.,  217. 

Livingstone,  David,  385. 

Locke,  John,  76,  no,  301. 

Lockyer,  J.  Norman,  125. 

Logic,  Mill's,  308. 

Logos,  Johannine,  227,  247-248  ;  of  the 
Alexandrine  type  of  doctrine,  250-259  ; 
weds  Gnostic  philosophy  with  the 
human  history  of  Jesus  Christ,  251; 
262. 

London,  Bishop  of,  27. 

Longfellow,  H.  W.,  8,  144,  367. 

Longfellow,  Samuel,  214. 

Louis  XIV.,  I,  438. 

Lowell,  J.  R.,  120, 

Lowell  Institute,  88. 

Lubbock,  Sir  John,  98. 

Luke,  Gospel  of,  232,  234,  253,  260. 

Lunatic  Asylum,  York,  30. 

Luther,   Martin,  141,  214,  224,  227,  446. 

Lycidas,  Milton,  444. 

Lyell,  Sir  Charles,  94,  126. 

M. 

Macaulay,  T.  B.,  125. 

McNeile,  Rev.  H.,  169  n. 

Malebranche,  Nicolas,  411. 

Malibran,  Maria  Felicia,  334. 

Man,  his  outfit  for  more  than  his  terres- 
trial sphere,  434-439;  as  a  creator, 
440. 

Manchester  New  College,  history  of,  20 ; 
its  several  designations,  20  n. ;  its  car- 
dinal purpose,  21 ;  types  of  doctrine 
which  it  has  reflected,  21-22;  23,  25, 
26,  166. 

Manning,  Archbishop,  98. 

Man^s  Place  in   the    Cosmos,    A.   Sethf 

339- 
Mansel,  H.  L.,  88,  93,  124,  290. 


INDEX 


455 


Marcion,  237,  243. 

Marcionitcs,   knew  the    Fourth   Gospel, 

237;  246. 
Mark,  Gospel  of,  234,  247. 
Martineau,  Basil,  son  of  James  Martineau, 

52- 

Martineau,  David,  son  of  Gaston  Marti- 
neau, 2. 

Martineau,  David,  son  of  the  above 
David,  2. 

Martineau,  Edith,  daughter  of  James 
Martineau,  52. 

Martineau,  Elie,  of  Bergerac,  2, 

Martineau,  Elizabeth,  sister  of  James 
Martineau,  3. 

Martineau,  Ellen,  sister  of  James  Marti- 
neau, 3,  6. 

Martineau,  Gaston,  son  of  Elie  Marti- 
neau, and  founder  of  the  English 
line,  2. 

Martineau,  Harriet,  sister  of  James  Mar- 
tineau, 3,  5  n.,  II,  14  n.,  82-S7. 

Martineau,  Helen,  daughter  of  James 
Martineau,  36. 

Martineau,  Henry,  brother  of  James  Mar- 
tineau, 3. 

Martineau,  Herbert,  son  of  James  Marti- 
neau, 52. 

Martineau,  Isabella,  daughter  of  James 
Martineau,  36. 

Martineau,  James  :  ancestry,  1-3 ;  birth, 
3;  early  home,  4-11  ;  at  school  in 
Norwich,  S-12;  in  Lant  Carpenter's 
school  at  Bristol,  13-18;  studies  civil 
engineering  at  Derby,  18;  decides  to 
become  a  minister,  19  ;  at  college,  19- 
34;  "admitted  to  preach,"  35  ;  teaches 
in  school  at  Bristol,  35;  called  as 
co-pastor  to  the  Eustace  Street  Pres- 
byterian Church  in  Dublin,  35  ;  mar- 
riage, 36 ;  ordination,  36-42  ;  combines 
preaching  with  teaching,  43  ;  prepares 
a  hymn-book,  43  ;  becomes  sole  pastor 
of  his  church,  44;  makes  an  issue 
with  his  congregation,  on  the  Regium 
Bonttm,  44 ;  becomes  co-pastor  of  the 
Paradise  Street  Chapel  in  Liverpool, 
50;  begins  work  as  a  reviewer,  51  ; 
becomes  sole  pastor,  51;  publishes  the 
Rationale  of  Religious  Inquiry,  52  ; 
bears  a  part  in  the  Liverpool  Contro- 
versy, 57-71;  publishes  a  second  hymn- 
book,  74  ;  a  writer  of  hymns,  75  ;  be- 
comes Professor  of  Mental  and  Moral 


Philosophy  and  Political  Economy  in 
Manchester  New  College,  75-/6;  un- 
conscious divergence  from  English 
Sensationalism,  77;  his  apostasy  shown 
him  by  John  Stuart  Mill.  77  ;  pub- 
lishes first  series  of  Endeavors  after 
the  Christian  Life,  78;  continues  criti- 
cal labors,  79;  publishes  second  series 
of  Endeavors,  79;  goes  to  Germany 
for  rest  and  study,  80-S1;  his  conver- 
sion from  an  empirical  to  a  spiritual 
philosophy,  80-S1  ;  essay  on  Mesmeric 
Atheism,  82 ;  difficulty  with  his  sister 
Harriet,  S2-S7  ;  two  collections  of  his 
essays.  Miscellanies  and  Studies  of 
Christianity,  brought  out  in  Boston, 
88  ;  invited  to  London  to  become  resi- 
dent professor  in  Manchester  New 
College,  89  ;  resigns  his  pastoral  charge 
at  Liverpool,  89;  farewell  sermon,  89- 
91 ;  contest  over  his  appointment  to 
the  College,  91-92  ;  his  work  in  the 
College,  92-93;  takes  with  J.  J.  Tay- 
ler  the  pulpit  charge  of  Little  Portland 
Street  Chapel,  93 ;  on  the  death  of 
Mr.  Tayler  conducts  the  pulpit  service 
alone,  94;  becomes  Principal  of  Man- 
chester New  College,  94 ;  publication 
of  Essays,  Theological  and  Philo- 
sophical, 95;  two  series  of  Hours  of 
Thought  on  Sacred  Thittgs,  95 ; 
volume  on  Spinoza,  95  ;  publishes 
a  third  hymn-book,  95  ;  rejoinder  to 
Prof.  Tyndall,  95-96 ;  candidate  for 
the  chair  of  Logic  and  Mental  Philoso- 
phy inUniversity  College,  96;  opposed 
and  defeated  by  George  Grote,  96-97  ; 
becomes  a  member  of  a  Metaphysical 
Club,  97-99 ;  Academic  honors,  99- 
100;  other  testimonials,  100-103; 
death  of  his  wife,  102;  severs  his  con- 
nection with  Manchester  New  College, 
102-106;  publishes  Types  of  Ethical 
Theory,  107;  publishes  Study  of 
Religion,  iii;  publishes  Seat  of  Au- 
thority in  Religion,  117;  collects  and 
publishes  four  volumes  of  Essays,  Re- 
views, and  Addresses,  118;  publishes 
Home  Prayers,  118;  address  from  the 
scholars  and  thinkers  of  Europe  and 
America  on  his  eighty-third  birthday, 
118-120;  his  reply,  120-122;  critically 
reviews  the  Gospel  of  Peter  and  Bal- 
four's   Foundations    of   Belief,    122; 


456 


INDEX 


death,    4 ;    analysis    of    his    intellect, 
123-134;  personal  features,  135-141. 
Martineau,  Mary  Ellen,  daughter  of  James 

Martineau,  52. 
Martineau,    Philip     Meadows,    son     of 

David  Martineau,  2d,  2. 
Martineau,  Rachel,  sister  of  James  Mar- 
tineau, 3,  6. 

Martineau,  Robert,  brother  of  James 
Martineau,  3. 

Martineau,  Russell,  son  of  James  Marti- 
neau, 36. 

Martineau,  Thomas,  father  of  James 
Martineau,  3,  6. 

Martineau,  Thomas,  brother  of  James 
Martineau,  3. 

Martyr,  Justin,  his  use  of  our  Gospels, 
232-233 ;  comparison  of  one  of  his 
citations  with  corresponding  passage 
in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  23S. 

Matthew,  Gospel  of,  234,  260. 

Matthiae's  Greek  Grammar,  26. 

Maurice,  F.  D.,  98. 

Mecanique  Celeste,  Laplace,  322. 

Medici,  Cosimo  de',  438. 

Melanchthon,  Philip,  188. 

"  Memoirs  of  the  Apostles,"  232. 

Memoirs  of  Catharine  Cappe,  by  herself, 
29. 

Memoir  of  the  Late  Charles  Well- 
beloved,  John  Kenrick,  29  n. 

Mesmeric  Atheism,  82  seq. 

Messiah,  God's  and  man's,  73-74  ;  com- 
parison of,  in  Synoptics  and  in  John, 
247-248  ;  conditions  that  were  to  meet 
in  him,  252;  that  Jesus  was  Messiah 
a  Synoptic  teaching,  263 ;  indications 
that  Jesus  did  not  claim  the  Messiah- 
ship  himself,  264-277. 

Messiah,  Handel,  441. 

Metaphysical  Club,  its  origin  and  work, 
97-98. 

Mill,  James,  51,  no,  i8r. 

Mill,  J.  S.,  detects  Mr.  Martineau's  de- 
fection from  the  Necessarian  philoso- 
phy, 7T,  88,  93,  123,  124,  125,  128, 
165,  181,  304-305,  308,  309,  313,  314, 
316,  320;  admits  the  validity  of  the 
argument  from  Design,  336;  dislikes 
the  argument,  352;  his  happiness  the- 
ory, 3''',3 ;  366,  376- 

Miller,  Mrs.  Fenwick,  5  n. 

Milton,  John,  438,  441,  ,144, 

Miracle  and  Law,  379-381. 


Miscellanies,  edited  by  Thomas  Starr 
King,  88. 

Modern  Materialism  :  its  Attitude  to- 
wards Theology,  96. 

Montaigne,  Michel  de,  his  ideal  of  edu- 
cation, 17 ;  126,  347. 

Montesquieu.  Baron  de  438. 

Mo7tthly  Repository,  The,  51. 

Moral  Evil,  Christian  view  of,  174-176, 
3S9  seq. 

Morgan,  Thomas,  408. 

Moses,  154,  179,  221. 

Miiller,  Max,  24,  119,  126. 

Mystics,  The,  their  tendency  towards 
pantheism,  403-404. 

N. 

Nabis,  376. 

Nahum  the  prophet,  242. 

Nantes,  Edict  of,  i,  2,  399. 

Nathan  der  Weise,  Lessing,  8. 

National  Review,  The,  88,  94. 

Natural  Religion,  J.  R.  Seeley,  criti- 
cism of,  113  seq. 

Nature,  R.  W.  Emerson,  52. 

Nature  and  God,  95,  183. 

Necessity,  philosophical  doctrine  of, 
early  held  by  Dr.  Martineau,  "]"]  ;  he 
was  converted  from,  80-81  ;  illustrated 
and  criticised,  424-430. 

Neo-Platonism,  the  Alexandrian  type 
of,  reflected  in  the  Proem  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  250-251. 

Newman,  F.  W.,  82,  180. 

Newman,  J,  H.,  42,  124,  363  n. 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  408,  438. 

Nineteenth  Century,  98,  122. 

Nisan,  the  month  of,  249. 

Norwich,  early  home  of  the  Martineaus, 
2,  3  ;  outward  features  of,  8-10. 

Novalis,  F.  von  Hardenberg,  76,  429. 

O. 

Octagon  Chapel,  Norwich,  9  n. 

Old  and  New,  The,  117. 

One,  The,  412. 

Opie,  Amelia,  9,  10. 

Organs,  rudimentary,  355-356 ;  imper- 
fect, 356. 

Ould,  Rev.  Fielding,  58  seq. 

Outer  and  Inner  Temple,  The,  73. 

Oxford  University,  honors  Dr.  Marti< 
neau,  100,  119. 


INDEX 


457 


Pain,  of  hunger  and  thirst,  3S1  :  of  heat 
and  cold,  381-382,-  of  decline,  3S2- 
384 ;  of  apprehension  and  memoryi 
387  seq. 

Paley,  Bishop,  92  his  illustration  of  de- 
sign, 335-336  ;  his  argument  compared 
with  Ur.  Martineau's,33S;  his  doctrine 
of  future  rewards  and  punishments, 

365. 
Pantheism,  compared  with  Deism,  402- 

405  ;    compared    with    Tlieism,   407- 

410;  definition  of,  411;  concession  to, 

413-415;   reservation   from,  415-419; 

final  objection  to,  418-421;  considered 

with  reference  to  immortality,  430. 

Paradise  Street  Chapel,  80. 

Pardon,  Divine,  192. 

Parker,  Theodore,  124,  126,  127,  129, 
179;  criticised  by  Dr.  Martineau,  183, 
186,  187;  not  a  pantheist,  403. 

Parr,  Dr.  Samuel,  12. 

Pascal,  Blaise,  125,  214,  441. 

Paul,  St.,  214,  243,  260,  371,  427,  446. 

Paulus,  Heinrich  E.  G.,  228. 

Pericles,  371,  438. 

Personal  Influence  on  Present  Theology, 
88. 

Pessimism,  repugnant  to  human  nature, 

392-393- 
Peter,  his  declaration  at  Philippi,  271  seq. 

Peter,  Gospel  of,  122. 

Peterborough,  Bishop  of,  98. 

Pfleiderer,  Otto,  119. 

Pharisees,  The,  242. 

Phases  of  Faith,  F.   W.  Newman,  82 ; 

criticised,  106. 

Philippians,  Epistle  to  the,  230. 

Philo  Judaeus,  250, 

Philosophical  Christianity  in  France,  79. 

Pierre,  Marie,  2. 

Plato,  76,  80,  93,  108,  123,  125,  126,  128, 

131.  138,  139.  i4».  »8o.  195.  197,  336, 
437,438,  441. 

Plutarch,  230. 

Polycarp,  237  n. 

Pope,  Alexander,  404. 

Positive  Philosophy,  The,  303. 

Presbyterianism,  English,  doctrine  of 
Dr.  Martineau's  early  home,  6 ;  his 
doctrine  when  ordained,  36,  164  ;  its 
spirit  compared  with  that  of  English 
Unitarianism,  209-211. 


Prescott,  W.  H.,  125. 

Prey,  the  law  of,  384-386. 

Price,  Dr.  Richard,  109. 

Priestley,  Joseph,   20,   no,  162,  163  n., 

423- 
Proctor,  Richard,  126. 
Prospective  Review,  79,  86,  88. 
Prudence,  its  function  in  morals,  359  seq. 

R. 

Ranke,  Leopold  von,  81. 

Rankin,  Elizabeth,  3. 

Raphael,  440. 

Rationale  of  Religious  Inquiry,  The, 
publication  of,  52  ;  53;  analysis  of,  54- 
57;  107,  166,  167. 

Regium  Dontitn,  The,  44  seq.,  50. 

Reimarus,  Hermann  Samuel,  228. 

Relativity  of  Knowledge,  Frederic  Har- 
rison, 99. 

Religion,  Revealed  and  Natural,  com- 
pared, 257-259. 

Religion,  Revealed  and  Apocalyptic,  com- 
pared, 261-262. 

Renan,  Ernest,  119,  124,  197,  229. 

"  Right  by  Social  Vote,"  371. 

Roman  Catholic,  The,  221,  224. 

Romans,  Epistle  to  the,  230,  267. 

Rothe,  Richard,  389. 

Rudimentary  Organs,  355. 


St.  Andrews,  University  of,  118,  I19. 

St.  Peter's,  440. 

Salters  Hall,  convention  at,  209. 

Samson,  259. 

San  Greal,  The,  76. 

Saul,  259. 

Saul,  Robert  Browning,  395,  441. 

Savonarola,  Girolamo,  371. 

Sayers,  Dr.  Frank,  8. 

Schaff,  Dr.  Philip,  120. 

"  Scheme    of   Vicarious     Redemption,'* 

The,  173. 
Schleiermacher,  F.  E.  D.,  88,  124,  130, 

239.  430- 
Schopenhauer,  Arthur,  132, 141,  427. 

Schiirer,  Emil,  237  n.,  239. 

Schurman,  Dr.  J.  G.,  184-185  n.,  335, 

Science,  Nescience,  and  Faith,  95,  132  n. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  8. 

Seat  of  Authority  in  Religion,  95,  117, 


458 


INDEX 


ii8,  162,  169,  1S7,  198,  230,  232,233, 
234,  235,  236,  23S,  239,  242,  243,  244, 
245>  251,  252,  253,  255,  256,  257,  258, 
259,  260,  264,  265,  266  n.,  271,  272, 
274,  276,  322,  364,  365,  366,  367,  369, 
370,  372,  426. 

Seeley,  J.  R.,  criticism  of,  113  seg. 

Seer  in  Ezekiel,  The,  26S. 

Selection  in  Nature,  340  seg. 

Seneca,  140,  437. 

Sennaclierib,  436. 

Servetus,  Michael,  214. 

Sextus  Tarquinius,  378  seg. 

Seth,  Andrew,  339. 

Shaftesbury,  Earl  of,  109. 

Shakespeare,  John,  15. 

Shakespeare,  William,  15,  132,  441. 

Sin,  Dr.  Martineau's  treatment  of,  190- 
192;  punishment  for,  192-195. 

Skeats,  Herbert  S.,  45  n. 

Socini,  The,  214. 

Socrates,  76,  128;  uses  the  argument 
from  Design,  336;  371. 

Solomon,  his  ethics  Epicurean,  179. 

Son  of  David,  Jesus  so  designated  by  his 
countrymen,  265. 

Son  of  God,  265  ;  when  Jesus  became 
such,  252-253;  use  of  the  designation, 
266. 

Son  of  Man,  265  ;  significance  of  the  des- 
ignation, 267  seg.  ;  Second  Coming 
of,  276-277. 

Sophocles,  125. 

Sordello,  Browning,  336. 

Space,  its  laws  the  laws  of  the  human 
mind,  435. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  124,  125,  128,  134, 
224,  293  ;  Agnosticism  of,  296-297 ; 
416. 

Spencer,  W.  V.,  95. 

Spenser,  Edmund,  404. 

Spinoza,  Baruch  de,  his  type  of  ethical 
doctrine,  loS;  126,  183,  352,411. 

Spiritual  Faith^  A,  122  n.,  163  n.,  166, 
168,  169. 

Stagirite,  The,  So. 

Stanley,  Dean^  98. 

Stanley,  334. 

Stirling,  Hutcheson,  302. 

Strauss,  David  F.,  124,  229. 

Strauss  and  Theodore  Parker^  79. 

Studies  of  Christianity,  70,  78 ;  first  pub- 
lished, 88. 

Study  of  Religion,  The,  93  ;  analysis  of. 


111-117;  the  Address  it  called  forth, 
118  ;  the  dyke  it  opposed  to  pantheism, 
183  ;  187,  258,  286,  287,  288,  2S9,  292, 
296,  297,298,  312,  313,  315-316,330- 
33i>  332,  334,  33S,  340,  341,  342.  344> 
345,  349,  350-352,  353,  354,  356,  357, 
364,  374,  377,  3S1,  384,  3S8,  390,  391, 
396-397,  398,  399,  408-409,415,  41S- 
419,  420-421,  425,  428-429,  438,  440, 

441-442,  443-444,  445,  447- 

Study  of  Spinoza,  95,  107. 

Swift,  Dean,  369. 

Synoptics,  The,  general  features  of,  231 
seq.  ;  compared  with  the  Fourth  Gos- 
pel, 244  seq. 


TacituSj  Histories  of,  27  ;  437. 
Taggart,  Rev.  Edward,  93. 
Talmage,  Thomas  De  Witt,  143. 
Tauler,  Johann,  141,  150. 
Tayler,    J.   J.,  Principal  of  Manchester 

New  College,  21.;  91-92,  93,  94,  104, 

130, 241  n. 
Taylor,  Jeremy,  150. 
Taylor,  Rev.  John,  9. 
Taylor,  Rev.  Philip,  35. 
Taylor,  William,  8. 
Tennyson,  Alfred,  97,  98  n.,  119;  quoted, 

400,  443. 
Theism,    113  ;    contrasted  with   Deism 

and  Pantheism,  407  seq. 
Theodorus,  dream  of,  378-379. 
Theologia  Gervianica,  78,  150,  214. 
Theological  Review,  The,  94. 
Theophilus,   first   to   quote  the   Fourth 

Gospel   with  its  author's  name,   237, 

246. 
Thessalonians,  Epistle  to  the,  230. 
Thom,  Rev.  J.  H.,  57,  64,  65,  67,  71,  166, 

169. 
Thoreau,  H.  D.,  138. 
"Tides  of  the  Spirit,"  The,  150,  159. 
Tintern  Abbey,  W.  Wordsworth,  125. 
Toland,  John,  408. 
Transcendency,  Divine,  401  ;  contrasted 

with  Divine  Immanence,  402-404. 
Transfiguration,  The,  274-275. 
Trendelenburg,  Friedrich  Adolf,  80,  81, 

iSi. 
Trinitarian  Controversy,   A    Way  out 

of  201. 
Tiibingen,  school  of.  91,  95,  229. 
Tupper,  Martin,  139. 


INDEX 


459 


Turner,  Henry,  19,  104. 
Tusculum,  Disputations  at,  27. 
Tyndall,   John,    124,   321  ;    Dr.    Marti- 

neau's  rejoinder  to,  327-328. 
Types  of  Ethical    Theory,    So,  81,   92 ; 

publication   of,   102,    107 ;  analysis  of, 

108-109;  III,  131,  154,  174- 

U. 
Unitarian  Chapels  in  England,  their  loss 

and  their  recovery,  211  n. 
Unitarian  Society  and  Church,  Dr.  Mar- 

tineau's   contrasted  attitudes  towards, 

213- 

Unitarianism  at  Manchester  New  Col- 
lege, 21-22. 

Unitarianism  Confuted,  Clergymen  of 
the  Church  of  England,  65-68. 

Unitarianism  Defetided,  James  Mar- 
tineau  and  others,  6S-71. 

Unitarianism,  English,  descended  from 
English  Presbyterianism,  37;  its  his- 
tory reflected  in  Dr.  Martineau's 
career;  inconsistency  of,  in  tlie  Lady 
Hewley  suit,  210-21 1;  its  seculariza- 
tion, 220. 

Unitarians,  their  attitude  towards  Inspi- 
ration, 167,  towards  miracles,  171  ; 
their  ecclesiastical  temper,  215. 

Unitarians,  Hungarian  Consistory  of, 
104. 

Universe,  Moral  aspects  of  the,  375  seq. 

Universities,  English,  closed  to  such  as 
could  not  sign  the  creed  of  the  Estab- 
lished Church,  20. 

University  College,  80  ;  becomes  the  ally 
of  Manchester  New  College,  89;  Dr. 
Martineau  a  candidate  for  the  chair  of 
Logic  in,  96-97. 

University  of  Berlin,  Dr.  Martineau 
studies  there,  80. 

Upton,  Prof.  C.  B.,  299. 

Utilitarianism,  363-366. 

V. 

Valentinians   knew  the  Fourth  Gospel, 

237- 
Valentinus  did 
Gospel,  237. 


not  know    the    Fourth 


Vie  de  Jesus,  E.  Renan,  95. 
Vinci,  Leonardo  da,  440. 
Virgil,  437. 
Vitellius,  433. 

W. 

Waldenses,  The,  399. 

Walton,  Izaak,  68. 

Warrington  Academy,  20. 

Washington,  George,  371. 

Way  out  of  theTrinitarian  Controversy, 
A,  201-206. 

Ways  of  the  Spirit,  F,  H.  Hedge,  336  n. 

Webster,  Daniel,  362. 

Wellbeloved,  Charles,  Principal  of  Man- 
chester New  College,  21,  24;  account 
of,  29-34. 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  438. 

Wesley,  John,  9  n.,  214,  446. 

Westminster  Abbey,  134. 

Wesitninster  Review,  88. 

Whewell,  William,  124. 

Wheu'ell's  Morality,  79. 

Whewell's  Systematic  Morality,  79. 

Whitefield,  George,  144,  145. 

Whitney,  W.  D.,  126. 

Whiton,  Rev.  James  M.,  202  n. 

Wicksteed,  Charles,  50. 

Wicksteed,  Rev.  Philip  H.,  92. 

William  of  Orange,  399. 

William  III.,  44,  438. 

Wolfe,  Gen.,  145. 

Wordsworth,  William,  354,  404,  438. 

Worthington,  J.  H.,  104. 

Y. 

York,  Archbishop  of,  98. 
Youmans,  E.  L.,  125. 


Zacharias,  260. 
Zebedee,  241. 
Zeller,  Dr.  E.,  119. 
Zumpt,  Karl  Gottlob,  25. 
Zumpt's  Latin  Grammar,  24. 
Zumpts,  The,  81. 


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